Finally a piece that spells out a couple-a 3 things.
> In recent years, **the birth plunge has not only continued but also seemingly quickened**. According to the UNPD, at least *2/3^rds of the world’s population lived in sub-replacement countries in 2019*, on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic. The economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde has contended that the overall global fertility rate may have dropped below the replacement level since then. **Rich and poor countries alike have witnessed record-breaking, jaw dropping collapses in fertility**. A quick spin of the globe offers a startling picture.
>> Start with **East Asia**. The UNPD has reported that the *entire region tipped into depopulation in 2021*. By **2022, every major population** there in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan **was shrinking**. By **2023**, fertility levels were **40% below replacement in Japan, over 50% below replacement in China, almost 60% below replacement in Taiwan and an astonishing 65% below replacement in South Korea**.
>>>As for *Southeast Asia*, the UNPD has estimated that the region as a whole **fell below the replacement level around 2018. Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam have been sub-replacement countries for years. Indonesia**, the fourth most populous country in the world, joined the **sub-replacement club in 2022**, according to official figures. The **Philippines now reports just 1.9 births per woman. The birthrate of impoverished, war-riven Myanmar is below replacement, too. In Thailand, deaths now exceed births and the population is declining.**
>>>> In South Asia, **sub-replacement fertility prevails not only in India now the world’s most populous country—but also in Nepal and Sri Lanka; all 3 dropped below replacement before the pandemic**. (Bangladesh is on the verge of falling below the replacement threshold.) In India, urban fertility levels have dropped markedly. In **the vast metropolis of Kolkata, for instance, state health officials reported in 2021 that the fertility rate was down to an amazing one birth per woman, less than half the replacement level and lower than in any major city in Germany or Italy.**
>>>>> Dramatic declines are also sweeping *Latin America and the Caribbean*. The UNPD has calculated overall fertility for the region in 2024 at 1.8 births per woman 14% below the replacement rate. But that **projection may understate the actual decline**, given what the *Costa Rican* demographer Luis Rosero-Bixby has described as the “vertiginous” drop in birthrates in the region since 2015. In his country, total fertility rates are now **down to 1.2 births per woman. Cuba reported a 2023 fertility rate of just over 1.1, half the replacement rate; since 2019, deaths there have exceeded births. Uruguay’s rate was close to 1.3 in 2023 and, as in Cuba, deaths exceeded births. In Chile, the figure in 2023 was just over 1.1 births per woman. Major Latin American cities, including Bogota and Mexico City, now report rates below one birth per woman**.
>>>>>> Sub-replacement fertility has even come to North Africa and the greater Middle East, where demographers have long assumed that the Islamic faith served as a bulwark against precipitous fertility declines. **Despite the pro-natal philosophy of its theocratic rulers, Iran has been a sub-replacement society for about a quarter century. Tunisia has also dipped below replacement. In sub-replacement Turkey, Istanbul’s 2023 birthrate was just 1.2 babies per woman—lower than Berlin’s.**
It really is a wonderfully long read, filled with gems but this bit also needs to be said:
> The worldwide plunge in fertility levels is still in many ways a mystery. It is **generally believed that economic growth and material progress** what scholars often call “development” or “modernization” **account for the world’s slide into super-low birthrates** and national population decline. Since birthrate declines commenced with the socioeconomic rise of the West and since the planet is becoming ever richer, healthier, more educated, and more urbanized **many observers presume lower birthrates are simply the direct consequence of material advances**.
>> **But the truth is that developmental thresholds for below-replacement fertility have been falling over time. Nowadays, countries can veer into sub-replacement with low incomes, limited levels of education, little urbanization, and extreme poverty. Myanmar and Nepal are impoverished UN-designated Least Developed Countries, but they are now also sub-replacement societies.**
Exactly!
> During the postwar period, a veritable library of research has been published on factors that might explain the decline in fertility that picked up pace in the twentieth century. Drops in infant mortality rates, greater access to modern contraception, higher rates of education and literacy, increases in female labor-force participation and the status of women—all these potential determinants and many more were extensively scrutinized by scholars. **But stubborn real-life exceptions always prevented the formation of any ironclad socioeconomic generalization about fertility decline.**
>> Eventually, in 1994, the economist Lant Pritchett discovered the most powerful national fertility predictor ever detected. **That decisive factor turned out to be simple: what women want**. Because survey data conventionally focus on female fertility preferences, not those of their husbands or partners, scholars know much more about women’s desire for children than men’s. Pritchett determined that there is an almost 1:1 correspondence around the world between national fertility levels and the number of babies women say they want to have. **This finding underscored the central role of volition of human agency in fertility patterns**.
However it’s not so simple:
> **But if volition shapes birthrates, what explains the sudden worldwide dive into sub-replacement territory? Why, in rich and poor countries alike, are families with a single child, or no children at all, suddenly becoming so much more common? Scholars have not yet been able to answer that question**.
>> *But in the absence of a definitive answer, a few observations and speculations will have to suffice.*
I stop here because this is getting too long but do read when you can and discuss. Bearing in mind the facts as they stand.
Ok-Swan1152 on
Sorry but pregnancy has been awful for me and I’m not doing it again. There’s a few other reasons but that’s one of the main reasons that one kid is enough for me.
But I’m looking forward to a bunch of comments from childless dudes talking over women again.
KipchakVibeCheck on
Natural selection will fix this within a few generations.
SilverSquid1810 on
The simple reality is that when people live comfortable lives, they don’t want to have a ton of kids. Reliable access to birth control, very low child mortality, no need for extra hands around the farm, a public social safety net that will take care of you when you are old and can no longer care for yourself, the extreme expenses associated with modern childrearing (like university). With these factors and more, people have no need to have so many children, and thus do not. Across numerous societies and cultures, the wealthy tend to shun children, and the poor embrace them. As the world continues to grow richer, more and more countries will have falling birth rates. Immigration will not be the perpetual solution to the developed world’s population problems once the undeveloped countries that are the source of those immigrants become developed themselves.
4 Comments
Finally a piece that spells out a couple-a 3 things.
> In recent years, **the birth plunge has not only continued but also seemingly quickened**. According to the UNPD, at least *2/3^rds of the world’s population lived in sub-replacement countries in 2019*, on the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic. The economist Jesús Fernández-Villaverde has contended that the overall global fertility rate may have dropped below the replacement level since then. **Rich and poor countries alike have witnessed record-breaking, jaw dropping collapses in fertility**. A quick spin of the globe offers a startling picture.
>> Start with **East Asia**. The UNPD has reported that the *entire region tipped into depopulation in 2021*. By **2022, every major population** there in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan **was shrinking**. By **2023**, fertility levels were **40% below replacement in Japan, over 50% below replacement in China, almost 60% below replacement in Taiwan and an astonishing 65% below replacement in South Korea**.
>>>As for *Southeast Asia*, the UNPD has estimated that the region as a whole **fell below the replacement level around 2018. Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam have been sub-replacement countries for years. Indonesia**, the fourth most populous country in the world, joined the **sub-replacement club in 2022**, according to official figures. The **Philippines now reports just 1.9 births per woman. The birthrate of impoverished, war-riven Myanmar is below replacement, too. In Thailand, deaths now exceed births and the population is declining.**
>>>> In South Asia, **sub-replacement fertility prevails not only in India now the world’s most populous country—but also in Nepal and Sri Lanka; all 3 dropped below replacement before the pandemic**. (Bangladesh is on the verge of falling below the replacement threshold.) In India, urban fertility levels have dropped markedly. In **the vast metropolis of Kolkata, for instance, state health officials reported in 2021 that the fertility rate was down to an amazing one birth per woman, less than half the replacement level and lower than in any major city in Germany or Italy.**
>>>>> Dramatic declines are also sweeping *Latin America and the Caribbean*. The UNPD has calculated overall fertility for the region in 2024 at 1.8 births per woman 14% below the replacement rate. But that **projection may understate the actual decline**, given what the *Costa Rican* demographer Luis Rosero-Bixby has described as the “vertiginous” drop in birthrates in the region since 2015. In his country, total fertility rates are now **down to 1.2 births per woman. Cuba reported a 2023 fertility rate of just over 1.1, half the replacement rate; since 2019, deaths there have exceeded births. Uruguay’s rate was close to 1.3 in 2023 and, as in Cuba, deaths exceeded births. In Chile, the figure in 2023 was just over 1.1 births per woman. Major Latin American cities, including Bogota and Mexico City, now report rates below one birth per woman**.
>>>>>> Sub-replacement fertility has even come to North Africa and the greater Middle East, where demographers have long assumed that the Islamic faith served as a bulwark against precipitous fertility declines. **Despite the pro-natal philosophy of its theocratic rulers, Iran has been a sub-replacement society for about a quarter century. Tunisia has also dipped below replacement. In sub-replacement Turkey, Istanbul’s 2023 birthrate was just 1.2 babies per woman—lower than Berlin’s.**
It really is a wonderfully long read, filled with gems but this bit also needs to be said:
> The worldwide plunge in fertility levels is still in many ways a mystery. It is **generally believed that economic growth and material progress** what scholars often call “development” or “modernization” **account for the world’s slide into super-low birthrates** and national population decline. Since birthrate declines commenced with the socioeconomic rise of the West and since the planet is becoming ever richer, healthier, more educated, and more urbanized **many observers presume lower birthrates are simply the direct consequence of material advances**.
>> **But the truth is that developmental thresholds for below-replacement fertility have been falling over time. Nowadays, countries can veer into sub-replacement with low incomes, limited levels of education, little urbanization, and extreme poverty. Myanmar and Nepal are impoverished UN-designated Least Developed Countries, but they are now also sub-replacement societies.**
Exactly!
> During the postwar period, a veritable library of research has been published on factors that might explain the decline in fertility that picked up pace in the twentieth century. Drops in infant mortality rates, greater access to modern contraception, higher rates of education and literacy, increases in female labor-force participation and the status of women—all these potential determinants and many more were extensively scrutinized by scholars. **But stubborn real-life exceptions always prevented the formation of any ironclad socioeconomic generalization about fertility decline.**
>> Eventually, in 1994, the economist Lant Pritchett discovered the most powerful national fertility predictor ever detected. **That decisive factor turned out to be simple: what women want**. Because survey data conventionally focus on female fertility preferences, not those of their husbands or partners, scholars know much more about women’s desire for children than men’s. Pritchett determined that there is an almost 1:1 correspondence around the world between national fertility levels and the number of babies women say they want to have. **This finding underscored the central role of volition of human agency in fertility patterns**.
However it’s not so simple:
> **But if volition shapes birthrates, what explains the sudden worldwide dive into sub-replacement territory? Why, in rich and poor countries alike, are families with a single child, or no children at all, suddenly becoming so much more common? Scholars have not yet been able to answer that question**.
>> *But in the absence of a definitive answer, a few observations and speculations will have to suffice.*
I stop here because this is getting too long but do read when you can and discuss. Bearing in mind the facts as they stand.
Sorry but pregnancy has been awful for me and I’m not doing it again. There’s a few other reasons but that’s one of the main reasons that one kid is enough for me.
But I’m looking forward to a bunch of comments from childless dudes talking over women again.
Natural selection will fix this within a few generations.
The simple reality is that when people live comfortable lives, they don’t want to have a ton of kids. Reliable access to birth control, very low child mortality, no need for extra hands around the farm, a public social safety net that will take care of you when you are old and can no longer care for yourself, the extreme expenses associated with modern childrearing (like university). With these factors and more, people have no need to have so many children, and thus do not. Across numerous societies and cultures, the wealthy tend to shun children, and the poor embrace them. As the world continues to grow richer, more and more countries will have falling birth rates. Immigration will not be the perpetual solution to the developed world’s population problems once the undeveloped countries that are the source of those immigrants become developed themselves.