….The world fertility rate has steadily declined to 2.43 births per woman from 4.85 in 1970 , with a precipitous collapse over the past 20 years in east Asia.
The latest estimates are: India (2.5), France (2.1), US (2.0), UK (1.9), Brazil (1.8), Russia and Canada (1.6), China (1.55), Spain (1.5) Germany, Italy, and Japan (1.4), Poland (1.3) Korea (1.25), and Singapore (0.8). As a rule of thumb, it takes 2.1 to keep the population on an even keel.
Read more at Deflation supercycle is over as world runs out of workers – Telegraph
Decreasing birth rates are not good for a capitalist society, but probably a lot better for the planet (my humble thoughts anyhow). Not sure if there is a happy medium. I would be interested to see statistics for African and Arabic nations.
I agree. Exponential growth was unsustainable.
You can find fertility rates on IndexMundi. Nigeria for example is 5.25.
Many thanks – it is as I expected. Much higher than for Asian and Western cultures. This brings its own set of problems, even for the Western world. Unfortunately, religion becomes a huge issue as population dynamics change as well. History will just keep repeating itself, with the dominant nations winning out.
We have to help nations reduce their fertility rate and break out of the poverty trap.
Some will see this as noble and some will fight to the death against anyone who would try to change this…. Sort of a no-win situation. Courage will certainly be required and integrity will always be questioned.
There is a patronising myth that all that needs to be done is educate women to have a reasonable level of population stability. But who is going to educate those billions especially when some religions forbid it? It sure is the elephant in the room because so many have their head in the sand. Courage and integrity are sorely missing.
There is a poverty trap that many nations struggle with. High fertility rate means a high percentage of population is below working age. Which means the state does not have sufficient funds to train and educate them. And there are insufficient employers to employ them. Which leads to poor, uneducated population with high unemployment. Which reinforces the high fertility rate…….a never-ending loop.
The whole article is definitely worth a read. Excellent and thought provoking whether one agrees with it or not. Thanks to Colin for posting it.
I guess the helicopter view says we always wanted a smaller world population, and it wasn’t going to come without economic and individual/family hardship. Personally I think any attempt to manage the disruption by experts (you know – the guys that predicted the GFC six months after it happened) will just make the pendulum swing more wildly, but hey – what would I know (or anyone actually).
I think the real problem is no one knows what success will look like even if we somehow sailed into it through good luck or good management. We’re in a blunt ship with confused captains steering with a sluggish rudder going to no one know where, and there are plenty of passengers happy to scuttle the ship and pinch the cargo.