There are suddenly not enough babies being born.
On May 13, media outlets reported a critical turning point for the world population as the global total fertility rate-the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime-is reportedly dipping below the level necessary to sustain population balance, an event that may have already occurred.
The United Nations' data from 2017 placed the global total fertility rate at 2.5. At that time, it was projected to decrease to 2.4 by the late 2020s. However, by 2021, this rate had fallen to 2.3, nearing the demographic replacement level of about 2.2 that demographers consider necessary for population stability.
While the UN has not yet released the estimated fertility rates for 2022 and 2023, Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, a population economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has made his own estimates by integrating the UN's previous forecasts with actual data from the past two years covering about half of the global population. He suggests that last year the global fertility rate fell between 2.1 and 2.2, marking the first time in human history it has dropped below the global replacement level.
Fernández-Villaverde has thus warned of an impending demographic winter.
Declining Fertility: A Global Trend
In developed countries, fertility rates have been below replacement level since the 1970s and fell further during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fertility rates are also declining in developing nations. Last year, India surpassed China as the most populous country, yet its fertility rate too has fallen below the replacement level.
Moreover, Fernández-Villaverde noted that the number of births reported by national registries typically falls 10% to 20% short of the United Nations' projections.
For instance, the United States reported 3.59 million births last year, which was 4% less than predicted by the UN. In other countries, the decline was even more pronounced: Egypt reported a 17% decrease in births last year, while Kenya reported an 18% decrease in 2022.
Notably, in 2017, the global population was 7.6 billion, with UN projections suggesting continuous growth until a peak of 11.2 billion in 2100. However, by 2022, the UN had revised its forecast, moving the peak to the 2080s with a maximum of 10.4 billion-a projection that may already be outdated. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington now believes the global population will peak at around 9.5 billion in 2061 before it begins to decline.
Governments Struggle to Encourage Births
Many world leaders consider low fertility to be one of the most pressing issues their countries face, concerned about shrinking workforces, slowing economic growth, insufficient pension funds, and a decrease in societal dynamism. Moreover, a reducing population also implies diminished global influence.
As a result, various governments have implemented numerous policies to encourage childbirth, with Japan being particularly proactive.
After its fertility rate fell to 1.5 in the early 1990s, Japan introduced a range of initiatives, including maternity leave and subsidies for child care costs. However, the fertility rate continued to decline.
In 2005, Japan appointed Kuniko Inoguchi as its first minister in charge of gender equality and birth rate. She claimed that the primary barrier to having children was financial-the cost of marriage and child-rearing was too high. Following this, Japan introduced free hospital care for pregnant women and birth allowances. Consequently, Japan's fertility rate rose from 1.26 in 2005 to 1.45 in 2015 but has since fallen back to 1.26 by 2022.
This year, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida launched a new child support program, offering monthly allowances for all children under 18 and free university education for families with three children, along with full-pay parental leave.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol announced on May 9 his plans to create a new ministerial-level department to tackle the country's low birth rate. Despite billions of dollars invested in encouraging women to have more children and stabilize the population, South Korea's birth rate fell to an all-time low last year.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has implemented one of the most ambitious pro-natal policies in Europe. Last year, he expanded a tax relief for mothers that allows women under 30 who have children to be exempt from personal income tax for life. This policy includes housing and childcare subsidies and generous maternity leave.
In the U.S., while state and federal legislators have pushed to expand childcare subsidies and parental leave, they typically do not explicitly aim to increase birth rates. However, some Republicans are leaning in this direction. Last year, former President Donald Trump expressed his support for a "baby bonus" to boost the U.S. birth rate, and Kari Lake, a Republican Senate candidate from Arizona, has recently endorsed this idea.
