An aging and shrinking population

As recently as a decade ago, one of the major concerns of the world was about overpopulation. The few people predicting a coming age of depopulation or an age of population decline were not taken seriously.

However, starting around a decade ago, the decrease in population not only continued but seemingly quickened. For two generations, the world’s average childbearing levels have moved downward and this downswing just kept going.

The global fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman approximates the replacement threshold in affluent countries with high life expectancy. The replacement level is somewhat higher in countries with lower life expectancy. Today, the great majority of the people of the world live in countries with below replacement fertility levels.

Let us examine the population story in selected regions of the world. In Southeast Asia, the United Nations Population Division (UNPD) estimated that the region started falling 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, started having a population decline in 2022. In Thailand and Myanmar, deaths now exceed births and the population is declining. Even the Philippines now reports just 1.9 births per woman which is slightly below the 2.1 birth rate needed for replacement of the population.

For a long time, it was considered that one of the economic strengths of the Philippines was a young population with a growing workforce that could help augment the population decline in affluent countries. Now, the Philippines is in serious danger of losing that economic advantage.

In South Asia, the population level of India, the most populous country in the world, is undergoing a decline. The UNPD has calculated that in Latin America, it is 14 percent below the replacement rate. This makes the population decline in Latin America more serious than it is in Asia.

Major Latin American cities like Bogota in Colombia and Mexico City report that fertility rates are now below one birth per woman.

In North Africa and the Middle East, it was long assumed that the Islamic faith will prevent serious fertility declines. However, countries like Iran, Tunisia and Turkey have long experienced sub replacement rates.

The most serious problem has been in Europe where fertility rates have been continuously at sub replacement levels since the last five decades. Russia and the European Union have reported 3.7 million births in 2023 compared to 6.8 million births in 1964.

Another example is France, Italy, and Spain which reported fewer births in 2023 compared to the birth rates in the year 1860s or the time of Napoleon. In 2022, the UNPD recorded that in the EU, there were four deaths for every three births. It also estimated that in the year 2020, Europe entered a period of what will become a long-term population decline.

In the United States, the population birth rate is also below replacement rates at 1.6 birth per woman in 2023. However, because of a steady inflow of migrants, the United States population is continuing to increase unlike other developed countries. With the election of Donald Trump, his policy of restricting immigration and mass deportation of an estimated 15 to 20 million illegal migrants, the United States might experience a population decline.

The UNPD has projected that the only region with a still-growing population is sub-Sahara Africa. Although the fertility rates are dropping, the birth rate levels are still above replacement rates.

The UNPD estimates the replacement threshold for the whole world is roughly 2.18 births per woman. However, the UNPD is projecting that population decline worldwide is already underway.

Demographers are now studying why the birth rate is falling in rich and poor families alike. According to researchers, there is a phenomenon called “flight from marriage,” which means people are getting married at later ages or not at all; the spread of non marital cohabitations and temporary unions; and, increase in homes in which only one person lives independently or in other words, lives alone.

There will be several consequences of this population decline. The first is that future labor forces will shrink around the world which will constrain economic potential. A depopulating world will also be an aging world in which the old will begin to outnumber the young and aging societies will become the norm. There will be a surge of people aged 65 or older and in the 80-plus population, that surge will be even more rapid.

Society will have to adjust to a population not only with fewer workers but also with fewer taxpayers, home buyers, entrepreneurs, consumers and even voters. As people live longer, they will also retire much later.

Two decades ago, fewer than 425 million people on the planet had reached their 65th birthday. By 2050, roughly 425 million people will be more than 80 years old.

One area that will have to undergo dramatic and drastic change in an aging and shrinking world population is health care. There will be some diseases like dementia which will become more common. Also, as family units get smaller and fewer people get married, more and more families will not be able to take care of their aging family members.

The age of depopulation has already started. However, I have faith that humanity will be able to meet this latest global challenge and find a way to cope with the future consequences of a declining population.