US fertility rate is approx. 1.8, well below population sustainability. If it weren't for immigration (a political policy question), the US would have negative population growth too.
Immigration is not the solution. Identifying what policies make your nation an ecological sink where humans go to die childless is the solution. Immigration is a temporary solution that has negative consequences vs just having a birthrate above replacement and it only works as long as some place has a very high birthrate. Which is increasingly untrue as more countries catch the low birth rate disease pioneered in the first world.
I agree that immigration is a quick fix for a low fertility rate. But the people worrying about fertility rates fear cultural displacement by immigrants. They want less immigration, not more, and instead see a return to family values as the answer to the fertility rate problem.
Anyway, the problem is not the current decline in population, it is a fertility rate that remains far below a replacement rate. That means there is no bottom to the population decline. The immigration solution would need to be applied again and again.
> having children is essential to maintain the social welfare state
That's not actually true though - immigration happily supports the required population growth. When the whole world stops reproducing we may need a plan B, but that's not a problem right now.
That is clear, but people's perception of a problem does not influence its actual seriousness.
The person I replied to seemed to imply that low fertility is a problem worth solving, but not with migration, which is why I was asking about other solutions. But if you think that it is not a problem I'm also curious to know your reasons.
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