Maybe if we did get busy -- literally and figuratively -- and produced more smart people, we'd have more smart people available to work out solutions to the population issue. Or to better educate folks on family planning. Or whatever.
Consider this: How many times have we been told that we are gonna run out of food in X number years due to over-population? And then danged if some smarty pants don't come along and figure out ways to increase production, etc., to resolve the supply issue.
My thoughts exactly. I've never bought into the idea that we should limit family size due to the resources on the planet. Instead we should be working to conserve those resources and find other solutions. Dealing with limited resources is just another problem for mankind to solve. I guess I'm rather idealistic but I do think that's possible. Plus I love watching Star Trek so I guess my head's up in the clouds sometimes.
Now, I don't necessarily think smart individuals HAVE to reproduce to save the planet or something. That's the choice of each family. Plus gifted children are not easy to raise (especially once you get into the 2E/lots of OE range). Many times you can't just send them to your local public school and have everything work out perfectly (granted, this happens sometimes but usually there needs to be at least some advocacy on the parent's part). Raising a gifted child can take up more financial resources (if you need to send them to private schools, try and keep up with their latest interests etc).
Add to this that many parents of gifted children are gifted adults and may choose more demanding professions because of it. Professions that many times are NOT understanding of parenthood, ones that provide little to no maternity/paternity leave, and may ask you to travel quite a bit. Some gifted parents might both want to work so having one parent stay home with the kids isn't realistic. Now, the government could change a number of practices to force employers to be more family friendly, and I'd definitely encourage that, but that still might not make it easy for gifted individuals to have large families. Additionally, many gifted, working moms chose to have children later in life due to their careers and that also tends to limit family size.
As for the job situation, people being unsatisfied with their jobs. There's no 1-1 correlation with the number of gifted adults and the number of people unhappy with their jobs. This could certainly be a problem where schools can be blamed. Schools that aren't teaching children to their level and allowing children to follow their passions so they end up in jobs that don't suit their abilities. It can also be that some parents are forcing their kids into jobs that earn money instead of ones that allow their child to best pursue their passions. Additionally, there are some people that simply enjoy being in jobs that are below their abilities because then they can follow their own interests in their spare time.
It's too simplistic to say "go out and have more kids" or "stop having kids to save the world". Instead it's wiser to fix the problems surrounding giftedness and also to fix the problems surrounding overpopulation. Even in China where they try to limit population there are families having more than one child out there or at least would like to, limiting the number of kids isn't the solution.
