Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences
What might change the world’s dire demographic trajectory?
In the roughly 250 years since the Industrial Revolution the world’s population, like its wealth, has exploded. Before the end of this century, however, the number of people on the planet could shrink for the first time since the Black Death. The root cause is not a surge in deaths, but a slump in births. Across much of the world the fertility rate, the average number of births per woman, is collapsing. Although the trend may be familiar, its extent and its consequences are not. Even as artificial intelligence (ai) leads to surging optimism in some quarters, the baby bust hangs over the future of the world economy.
In 2000 the world’s fertility rate was 2.7 births per woman, comfortably above the “replacement rate” of 2.1, at which a population is stable. Today it is 2.3 and falling. The largest 15 countries by GDP all have a fertility rate below the replacement rate. That includes America and much of the rich world, but also China and India, neither of which is rich but which together account for more than a third of the global population.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "The baby-bust economy"
Leaders June 3rd 2023
More from Leaders
How “judge-mandering” is eroding trust in America’s judiciary
The assignment of judges to cases should be random, not political
The world’s most improbable success story still needs to evolve
Under Lawrence Wong, the city-state has a new chance to change
What companies can expect if Labour wins Britain’s election
The party that aspires to lead the country is courting business