DEE WILSON CONSULTING
Declining Birth Rate a Global Worry
The May 29 American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Foreign and Defense Policy Studies has an extraordinarily well informed and insightful article, "Will Nothing Stop the Incredible Global Birth Crash?" by Nicholas Eberstadt and Patrick Norrick. The authors' comment:
"We are now watching a revolutionary transformation of human birth choices play out around the world in a way that only science fiction writers could have imagined even a generation ago. Humanity is in the midst of a headlong global birth crash -- a plunge underway all around the world, in rich and poor regions alike, very possibly presaging an indefinite global depopulation..."
Demographers usually assert that the replacement fertility rate per woman is 2.1 births, but Eberstadt and Norrick maintain that in many countries the replacement rate is higher, i.e. from 2.18 to 2.25 births per woman. Declining fertility rates in East Asia, Korea and Japan have been reported and analyzed for years. The authors comment: "Back in 2010, East Asia's total fertility rate was about the same as Europe's then 1.6 births per woman ... But in the intervening years births in East Asia have all but collapsed. By 2025, East Asia's childbearing level averaged less than one birth per woman. ... Consequently, East Asia's fertility levels have sunk to ... 55 percent below replacement." South Korea's fertility rate has declined to 0.8 births per woman. Japan's fertility rate of 1.15 per woman is one of the highest in East Asia. China's' fertility rate is 0.93, lower than the target of China's former One Child Policy.
The authors state: "In Europe, according to Eurostat, the 2024 roster of prospective candidates for the one-birth-per-woman club included Italy (TFR 1.18), Poland (1.14), Lithuania (1.11) and Spain (1.10)." And: "In Canada, total fertility rates in 2024 were close to 1.0 in many provinces... " and in British Columbia's largest city, Vancouver , The TFR was under one birth per woman (0.94)."
However, the authors state, "The most remarkable demographic development in the Western Hemisphere is the birth crash unfolding in Latin America. In 2024, Uruguay's total fertility rate (TFR) was 1.18, Costa Rica 1.12, Chile's just 1.03." Mexico City , "put its 2023 TFR at 0.96, lower than for China that same year." Puerto Rico's 2023 TFR slumped to 0.89 -- making it the first U.S. territory to fall below the one birth per woman mark."
The authors state: "In nearly every place with the statistics to track fertility trends, birth rates are falling relentlessly, hitting new lows and shattering old records on all but an annual basis: as if some invisible gravitational force were at work ... " "For instance, the Philippines -- Asia's largest Catholic country -- reported a fertility rate of 1.7 for 2022/ 24, ... Manila's TFR was 1.4..."
The main exceptions to low fertility rates is sub-Saharan Africa, where fertility still averages more than four births per woman. "Even so, the sub- Saharan is subject to the seemingly irresistible sway of ever lower childbearing, too. By the reckoning of the UN Population Division .. .fertility levels in every one of SSA's 51 countries fell between 1980 and 2023 - and fertility for the region as a whole dropped by over 35 percent over those same decades. The main exception to the global decline in fertility is Israel where fertility rates have increased from about 2.4 births per woman in 1995 to 3.1 in 2024, Eberstadt and Norrick state.
Despite the precipitous decline in fertility around the world, the fertility rate for humans as a whole remains slightly above or close to replacement, the authors assert, primarily because of relatively high fertility rates in sub- Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, the world's human fertility rate has declined by more than half since 1968, with no end in sight. The authors comment: "After nearly sixty years of virtually nonstop decline in human fertility at the global level, every continent but Africa was a sub- replacement zone by 2023. Europe was 30 + percent below replacement. North America and Australia wee both 20 + percent below replacement. Perhaps most surprising, ... Latin America and immense Asia were bot sub- replacement fertility replacement fertility continents, too; each about 15 percent below the childbearing levels required for long term population stability."
Eberstadt and Norrick assert that there is no widely accepted explanation for the fertility trends they discuss. They assert that the human world is conducting a "large scale natural experiment of sorts, and it has not been kind to theorists of "socio- biology." It is already evident that fertility rates are not "hard wired: by genetics and that humans across the globe are choosing small families or to have no children, given the availability of birth control and abortion. " A worldwide change in mentality, and a revolution in attitudes about family and children, is seemingly revealed by these new birth trends. It would appear that tradition, duty and sacrifice are exerting less of a call on our moderns than they did in the past, while the allure of convenience, autonomy and self actualization are increasingly affecting even family formation," the authors state. Even more to the point, women across the world have greatly increased freedom and ability to decide whether they want to become pregnant and devote their lives to raising children. The answer is often "no" or a decision to commit their lives to one or two children. Perhaps male social scientists are baffled by the decline in fertility around the world, but I doubt that female scholars are puzzled, even if they have chosen to have children.
The American Enterprise Institute is a center right think tank, often critical of Trump but supportive of the Iran war. The authors do not discuss immigration policy in the light of long term large declines in fertility rates. Societies with sharply declining birth rates and rapidly aging populations will inevitably have to depend on immigrants to do much of the labor required do many of the jobs required to keep communities functioning. No rational society in these circumstances would adopt cruel, merciless practices and policies to make life intolerable for both legal and illegal immigrants. To do so would be monumentally stupid.
Eberstadt and Norrick have written an extraordinarily informative and thought provoking article with an alarmist tone. They view the decline in fertility as a dangerous trend, a type of retreat of the human species. My view is the opposite. The decline in fertility suggests a growing appreciation of the needs of children and of the time and resources they require, and of the rights of women to choose to limit family size or choose a life other than raising children.