r/Economics

We think we know how to solve the population crisis — end poverty through economic growth and birth rates fall. It has worked every single time it's been tried.

But economic growth solves the population crisis by creating two worse ones. Growth-driven consumption accelerates ecological overshoot, pushing us further beyond planetary boundaries. And the same rise in living standards that reduces birth rates hollows out the demographic base modern economies depend on.

So we're trapped.

Don't end poverty and the population keeps growing.

End it through growth and you get ecological collapse and a pension crisis that could bankrupt nations.

This isn't a policy failure — it's a structural one. And the only way out is through a post growth economy designed to meet human needs within ecological limits rather than expand indefinitely beyond them.

Finland's non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for people aged 15-74 also rose to its highest level this century — now standing at 12.7 percent, compared to 10.5 percent a year ago.

This is a 20 percent increase on the same month last year and represents the highest number of unemployed people registered in a single month in Finland so far this century.