Oh look, Abul is in my comments again making a strawman argument to a post critical of immigration. Let’s unpack his pathetic attempt at a gotcha: 1. He ignores the specific wording in my post, including “combined with poor management” and “have a lot to do with” - which are explicit qualifiers to acknowledge there are other factors at play 2. He picks China and Japan without following through to the fact that neither are adopting high and non-targeted immigration as a solution to their demographic and economic challenges 3. Surveys in Australia consistently show there’s a gap between the number of children people want to have and the number they’re having - and cost of living, housing affordability and insecurity are repeatedly cited as the reasons why 4. When Abul was in his twenties, a median single wage earner could reasonably save toward a modest family home and support kids on that income - that lifestyle looks like a luxury by today’s standards 5. Poor immigration settings contribute to the underlying problems - real wage growth suppression, pressure on housing and infrastructure, poor business investment and lazy economic management 6. Even if declining fertility is now hard to reverse, that doesn’t justify leaning into endless population growth as the solution - we should be confronting the reality that what worked last century is falling apart in this one