The fertility rate in virtually all countries is declining. The fertility rate in much of the world, including North America, Europe, Russia, China and Japan, is already below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per average woman.
If this goes on, world population will peak soon after the end of the century and start declining. Populations of a few countries are declining already.
This is good news. All other things being equal, it means less danger of famine, less pressure on the environment and less competition for scarce resources.
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But there are problems, too. One is decline of nations as their populations become older and smaller. Another is a change in the world balance of power during the transition, as some nations shrink while others continue to grow.
Two Canadian writers, Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, explored these issues in a new book, EMPTY PLANET: The Shock of Global Population Decline.
The fertility rate is 1.4 in Japan and 1.1 in South Korea. In the short term, this means an ever-larger elderly population that must be supported by an ever-smaller working age population. I don’t think it is an accident that Japan has more robots per person than any other country.
A younger population tends to be more ambitious, innovative and warlike. An older population tends to be more cautious and peaceful. Older populations consume less, which is a good thing—but not for a capitalist economy, which requires growing markets.
In the long run, unless there is a change of direction, countries with low fertility rates could literally die out. Americans and Canadians, with fertility rates of 1.8 and 1.5, have kept up national population numbers through immigration. But the Japanese and South Koreans accept virtually no immigrants. They see immigration as a threat to their racial and cultural purity.
In the short run, Japan and South Korea face economic decline and, in the long run, a slow fading from the world scene. All countries whose birth rates fall below the replacement rate will face this dilemma sooner or later, the authors wrote.
Demographers have a term, “the population transition.” It describes how countries go from having a high birth rate and high death rate to a high birth rate and low death rate (a population explosion) and end up with a low birth rate and low death rate.
This is often attributed to growing wealth, but Bricker and Ibbitson argued that the key factor is cultural change. It is a combination of:
- Feminism, women gaining control of reproduction and finding opportunities outside the home.
- Urbanization, people moving to cities where, unlike on the farm, additional children are no longer an asset.
- Modernity, people living for themselves instead of to perpetuate a family, faith or nation.
Feminism, urbanization and modernity explain how the fertility rate in Brazil, a poor country, can be 1.7, well below the 2.1 replacement rate and below the 1.8 fertility rates of the United States and the United Kingdom. This is good news because it means that the population transition can take place without the whole world adopting the American consumer culture.
When religion and nationalism are strong, fertility rates, all other things being equal, are likely to be high. Loyalty to faith and nation likely explain why the Israeli fertility rate is 3.1 and the Palestinian rate is 3.9.
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