# Fertility decline - where do you think it will land **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 3, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979 "2021-08-03T17:39:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/1 "2021-08-03T17:39:23Z")
Was just reading lately about the continuing decline in number of children born to each woman. Some people are happy for environmental reasons, others concerned for economic reasons (social programs built on larger younger generations), still others for political or social reasons (worried about changing.erased culture due to higher birth rates in other social/religious/racial groups or about declining national power). Nonetheless, women are having fewer children. Not just in developed countries, but also in many developing ones. This happens despite various government interventions trying to encourage more children. So in ten years or fifty, what do you expect [the fertility rate](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN) rate to be in your country or in the planet as a whole? Do you have any expectation of the trend changing? Basically, what do you think it will look like in the coming decades? How do you expect the nation/world to adapt? Obviously, overall population will continue to go up for a while (barring some major intervention), but countries (and the world) will be aging. Unless you think we’ve got a good shot at anti-aging (which would keep a larger working age population longer), whether or not paired with life extension. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/2 "2021-08-03T19:53:55Z")
I am utterly confident we will be stuffing more humans into the planet for hundreds of years to come. Any future population declines will probably be fueled by disease/disasters way more than people’s decisions/ability to have children. Anti-aging developments - who knows? Should balance out workforce problems to a significant extent. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2021, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/3 "2021-08-03T20:52:06Z")
I could foresee a continued effort to keep people in the labor force into later ages. Already in the US, the ages for drawing social security have been bumped later. I can imagine that happening again. With constant improvements in medical care, more people will live longer and be healthier so they will be capable of working. The downside will be for those that can’t really work or those that don’t want to after a lifetime of employment. As likely our culture will continue to embrace the “work work work” ethos. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2021, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/4 "2021-08-04T20:37:43Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > With constant improvements in medical care, more people will live longer and be healthier so they will be capable of working. This may be true, but the government is more concerned with funding pensions from a diminishing workforce. My state pension does not come from some fund built up over my working years, it is paid from current tax receipts. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2021, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/5 "2021-08-05T12:42:42Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > I am utterly confident we will be stuffing more humans into the planet for hundreds of years to come. Any future population declines will probably be fueled by disease/disasters way more than people’s decisions/ability to have children. Given that the number of children in the world has already leveled off, and that birth rates decrease as poverty continues to decrease, I think we’ll level off around 11-12 billion in about 100 years. Replacement rate is 2.1, and the world is already down from 5 in the 1960s to 2.4. Most of the growth will be in Sub-Saharan Africa. > [@Tzigone](#): > > So in ten years or fifty, what do you expect [the fertility rate](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN) rate to be in your country or in the planet as a whole? The current trend puts the US at around 1.4 in ten years. I expect something lower in fifty but don’t have much basis to say how much lower. World? Maybe 2.3 and 2.2, respectively. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2021, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/6 "2021-08-05T12:53:47Z")
My only regret is that I will not live long enough to enjoy the benefits of having fewer of the little assholes screaming & kicking at the back of my airplane seat. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2021, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/7 "2021-08-05T12:54:39Z")
Unless birth rates reverse their decline very soon, global population will top out at less than 10 billion. Japan, China and Russia are already experiencing raw population declines. What will it take to reverse the trends and do we really want to? Managing economies in times of aging workforces and population declines will be very difficult but perhaps not impossible. Things might be very different for the third generation from now but not necessarily worse. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2021, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/8 "2021-08-05T13:09:43Z")
Pre-COVID UN report: [https://population.un.org/wpp/](https://population.un.org/wpp/) Pew summary: > **[World population growth is expected to nearly stop by 2100](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/17/worlds-population-is-projected-to-nearly-stop-growing-by-the-end-of-the-century/)** > > For the first time in modern history, the world’s population is expected to virtually stop growing by the end of this century. As @Red_Wiggler indicates, things look very different now. Whether that’s a blip or not remains to be seen. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2021, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/9 "2021-08-05T15:40:37Z")
I expect birth rates to decline globally but unevenly. Europe, East Asia and North America already have rates well below replacement (South Korea is approaching less than 1!) while sub-Saharan Africa will continue to increase in population on into the next century. If present trends continue almost every other person on the planet will be born on the African continent by the end of the century. What this will do to global immigration patterns, economies and cultures will be fascinating to observe (which I won’t be able to do). ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2021, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/10 "2021-08-05T20:13:50Z")
Doesn’t it have to decline in order for it to then safely increase? If it keeps increasing you get your old folks taken care of by the increase in the younger workforce/tax payer, but you also increase the negative environmental impact, have more people to feed, clothe and house, and in the most basic terms have an unhappy, over-crowded planet. If you have a time of declining birth rate, yeah there’s fewer new taxpayers, pension funders and senior-service workers but your planet gets healthier, global food droughts become more scarce, pandemics spread less and there’s a dip in the number of old people for a generation, at which time the birth rate can go up or go back to “normal” thus producing new generations that are numerous enough to support the needs of those that came before it. I mean…it can’t just keep going up and up forever. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2021, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/11 "2021-08-06T23:57:34Z")
Over the years we’ve had a few threads where we speculated about modern societies with greatly diminished numbers but now we’re looking at a future with prospects of real numerical declines (it won’t seem to happen quickly, which removes some of the drama). Questions, among a million others: will First World nations by necessity divert spending from the military to eldercare? Will they offer huge incentives for procreating? Or use coercion in some places? Will the west begin competing for young African and middle eastern immigrants? Would the Third World countries leverage some kind of economic reward from the migration of their youth surplus? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2021, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/12 "2021-08-07T02:27:48Z")
Can’t happen quick enough. > **[Earth Overshoot Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) is the calculated illustrative calendar date on which humanity's resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year. The term "overshoot" represents the level by which human population's demand overshoots the sustainable amount of biological resources regenerated on Earth. When viewed through an economic perspective, the annual EOD represents the day by which the planet's an... ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2021, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/13 "2021-08-07T03:32:02Z")
outside of Africa, the world is already population stable or in decline. When will it end? east Asia and eastern Europe have the lowest fertility rates of about 1.3. I don’t know when it ends. I think as neuroscience improves people may be more willing to have kids because quality of life will improve. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2021, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/14 "2021-08-07T03:44:44Z")
> [@Red\_Wiggler](#): > > Over the years we’ve had a few threads where we speculated about modern societies with greatly diminished numbers but now we’re looking at a future with prospects of real numerical declines (it won’t seem to happen quickly, which removes some of the drama). > > Questions, among a million others: will First World nations by necessity divert spending from the military to eldercare? > > Will they offer huge incentives for procreating? Or use coercion in some places? > > Will the west begin competing for young African and middle eastern immigrants? Would the Third World countries leverage some kind of economic reward from the migration of their youth surplus? I believe France already experiments with incentives to have kids. don’t know if they worked. Also robotics and labor saving devices will grow rapidly to help the elderly live independently. it’ll be odd if coercion is used to encourage births, it’s mostly only been used to prevent them. until now. I could see higher taxes on childless people to find programs for those with kids. But even nations with tons of programs to help parents have low birth rates. ---
**Author:** ![SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e19adc/32.png) [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpacemanSpiff_II)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2021, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/15 "2021-08-10T13:57:53Z")
One aspect which hasn’t attracted much attention of yet is the continuing [decline in male sperm count](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_infertility_crisis), observed over decades and mostly in developed nations. [Some experts](https://www.bbc.com/news/health-40719743) have extrapolated such declines continuing into the future, which could cause dramatic population declines at some point. (Personally I tend to think that’s overblown for a number of reasons, but you never know.) ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2021, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/16 "2021-08-19T21:43:17Z")
> [@SpacemanSpiff\_II](#): > > One aspect which hasn’t attracted much attention of yet is the continuing [decline in male sperm count](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_infertility_crisis), observed over decades and mostly in developed nations. So, white man’s fault again, eh? Typical. ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fertility-decline-where-do-you-think-it-will-land/947979/17 "2021-08-22T20:05:26Z")
John Maynard Keynes suggested in 1932 or so that by the year 2000, humanity could have a better standard of living AND a work week of perhaps 15 hours. If we moved to that, t(e question of productivity and pensions and wellbeing would be resolved despite a fall in the population. We could work, oh, 16 hours a week say and look after Africa