You can’t stare down reality: population collapse has begun

Prodigious and profound – that’s my take on a study just released by the prestigious McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), “Dependency and depopulation? Confronting the consequences of a new demographic reality.”

The study is a wake-up call for a world sleepwalking into unprecedented social upheaval. It examines“implications of a new demographic reality brought on by falling fertility and increasing longevity… reshaping global populations.” This is not a forecast; it is unfolding as we speak. The implications are breathtaking. Humanity is on the cusp of precipitous and prolonged population collapse caused by an unprecedented decades-long birth dearth.

MGI states the obvious: “[F]ertility rates have fallen below the replacement rate required to maintain a stable population.” Stable? Demographic instability is the new reality.

Falling fertility rates shift the demographic balance toward youth scarcity and more older people, who are dependent on a shrinking working-age population. Longer life spans accelerate the shift. This phenomenon has begun to play out across advanced economies and China, where in three-fifths of counties annual deaths already exceed births. Emerging economies have more runway, but they face the need to get richer before the demographic transformation sets in.

“Youth scarcity and more older people” means everything is changing. Growth models and projections traditionally based on demographic stability, reliant on baseline assumptions about human behaviour, values and preferences are now obsolete. Every aspect of human endeavour – productivity, consumption, pensions, politics – and the basic socio-economic paradigms heretofore taken for granted are mutating under the ineluctable arc of demography.

Humanity is drifting into uncharted waters. We’ve endured population decline from war and disease but have never encountered a prolonged birth dearth.

Merely a generation ago, the notion of population collapse was unfathomable to most. Now demographers deem it inevitable.

 

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Still, many dismiss warnings about the world running out of people. They attack the messengers as sensationalist gloom-and-doomers or pronatalist fanatics who care nothing for the environment and would force procreation by religious edict. Further, if something is projected to occur beyond the next election cycle there is scant public consciousness. Denial, the “it’ll never happen” mentality prevails. Don’t be fooled. Read the data. Per Arthur Schopenhauer: “All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident.”

Falling fertility rates are propelling major economies toward population collapse in this century. Two-thirds of humanity lives in countries with fertility below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per family. By 2100, populations in some major economies will fall by 20 to 50 percent, based on UN projections.

The world reached its maximum number of annual births in 2012, when 146 million babies were born, and the global number of births will continue to slowly decline.

In Global North countries where total fertility rates (TFRs) have been below replacement level for at least 50 years, those population pyramid graphs are morphing into inverted obelisks because there are fewer children than senior citizens.

Waves of change

This demographic metamorphosis brings potentially paralysing social challenges. “[T]he demographic shift will require society to rethink existing systems for work and retirement in ways that may compel a change in our social contract—no easy feat.” What politician wants to talk about that? As they say in America, kick the can down the road!

MGI presents global demographic metamorphosis as transpiring in three waves by tracking working-age (15-64) populations.

The first wave, well underway, is in the Global North: Europe, the Anglosphere and East Asia. These regions were the first to see below-replacement fertility. Working-age people are 67 percent of the population (down from a 2010 peak of 70 percent) and rapidly declining. China’s working-age population peaked in 2010; the US in 2007; Germany in 1986. That’s one reason why Deutschland was flooded with migrants. It didn’t work.

Today 35 percent of world population is in the Global North. It will be less than 20 percent by century’s end. The demographic dividend (a disproportionately large labour force) is gone for good. Robust economic growth will be a thing of the past.

The second wave has just begun in the Global South (excepting Sub-Saharan Africa). This includes Latin America, the Caribbean, India, the Middle East and North Africa. Average TFR is 2.2, just over the 2.1 replacement level and falling. Like the Global North, two thirds of their populations are of working age, though rising, expected to peak in the latter 2030s. The support ratio in India, the world’s most populous country, is 9.8 working-age people for every retiree. It will be half that by mid-century and 1.9 by 2100.

The third wave? Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sub-Saharan exceptionalism

[In Sub-Sharan Africa] the average fertility rate is 4.4 today, and just 56 percent of the population is working age. This share will continue to grow, peaking at 66 percent well into the second half of the century, when the third wave of the demographic shift hits its shores.

By that time, global population collapse will be well underway. However:

Even though Sub-Saharan Africa’s fertility rate is falling fast, almost 300 of the world’s next thousand babies will be born there. Nigeria alone will become home to 57 of the next thousand—or five more than the 52 born across Central, Eastern, and Western Europe combined.

By 2100… Sub-Saharan Africa will drive nearly all the growth in the share of the total population. In 1997, 11 percent of the global population lived in the region. This share increased to 16 percent in 2023 and is projected to climb to 23 percent in 2050 and 34 percent in 2100.

Sub-Saharan Africa’s median age is 19.

Will Africa cash in on the demographic dividend and become an economic powerhouse? Or will tribalism, corruption and failure to adapt hold them back? Some international corporations pass on operations in Africa for those reasons. Will the lure of cheap labour finally reel them in? 

Ageing gracefully? Fuggedaboutit!

Barring a radical TFR reversal, ageing societies are here to stay.

[T]he global age mix is shifting. While many people call this phenomenon “aging,” in fact the declining number of young people—a youth deficit—is driving the bulk of the demographic shift.

China’s median age is over 40. Japan is at 50, South Korea 45. Traditionally, East Asians are proud of their ancient civilizations and veneration of ancestors is baked into that. But the pronatalist lifestyle essential for civilizational survival is absent. Population is already declining in every “Asian tiger” economy.

Europe’s median age is in the 40s, the US at 39. The West’s attempt to at once suppress wages and stave off population decline with mass immigration hasn’t worked. Socially engineered multiculturalism has failed, and social discord is soaring.

Senior citizens will account for a quarter of global consumption by 2050. The global support ratio was 9.7 in 1997. It is 6.5 today, projected to be 3.9 by 2050. In first wave countries it is 3.9, projected at 2.0 by 2050.

Takeaways

While we should continue combating the birth dearth, let’s face it: our reality is decreasing fertility and a youth deficit that will sharply reduce the working-age component of societies across the globe. We’re looking at a fundamentally different world on the horizon. Accept and plan accordingly.

Here and there insular high-fertility communities of faith (Amish, Haredis, traditionalist Catholics) are resistant to this trend. Thus people of faith are a growing percentage of humanity. However, even in high-fertility sub-Saharan Africa TFRs are crashing. MGI:

Absent swift and comprehensive action, younger workers today will inherit a weaker world economy, strained public retirement systems, and eroded wealth transfers between generations. Building resilience to this demographic transformation requires fundamental societal and economic shifts.

There is no “swift and comprehensive action” on the horizon. Social contracts will be shredded. In living memory the world economy has been overheated all along, fuelled in large measure by those completely unnecessary though highly profitable world wars that built the military-industrial complex. We’re on the cusp of yet another. Let us pray that the powers-that-be don’t start World War III just to keep the lucre flowing.   


Are declining birth rates really a crisis or just conservative catastrophizing?  


Louis T. March has a background in government, business, and philanthropy. A former talk show host, author, and public speaker, he is a dedicated student of history and genealogy. Louis lives with his family in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

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Showing 24 reactions

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  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2025-02-03 22:02:31 +1100
    The US has more than enough money to feed everyone. A small cut in military funding (0.01% would be sufficient) would free up enough money to feed everyone, with a lot left over.

    Corporate welfare also needs to be addressed, but DOGE certainly won’t even consider it.

    Churches should also be taxed, since they spend most of their time, money and energy on building new churches and converting people than they do about feeding the poor, sheltering the homeless and alleviating suffering.
  • Jürgen Siemer
    commented 2025-02-03 19:33:11 +1100
    Paul, do not talk about the middle ages. Talk about today!

    Yes, I agree, the system in the US and in the west is rigged, but not through the income taxes!

    The really rich do not pay much income taxes (although they still pay multiple times in actual dollars than what we pay), because the large majority of their real income is in the appreciation of the shares, and some in dividends.

    Share prices shot up since 2019 because of the money printing of central banks, money printing that shifted purchasing power from the saving poor and middle classes to the oligarchs and the government.

    Money printers are thieves.

    We do not need higher income tax ratios, in fact most of the oligarchs would not have a problem with that, some of whom have already declared not to receive a salary.

    We need higher interest rates and somebody with a chain saw.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2025-02-03 17:50:02 +1100
    Jurgen, the poor are not poor because they want to be, or because of bad financial management.

    They are poor because the system in the US is rigged. Money is shifted to those who are already wealthy because of unfair income tax systems.

    Do you know what led to more income inequality during the middle ages? Population decline. With fewer workers to exploit, nobles and business owners had no choice but to offer more money and better conditions.
  • Jürgen Siemer
    commented 2025-02-03 17:41:44 +1100
    Food for free? Indeed, we cannot afford that.

    Yes, there is a severe, junk food induced health crisis in the US and many other countries that affects worker productivity.

    The causes of that are actually well known, based on our decisions and therefore reversible. Just compare the US citizens from a 100 or 80 years ago with their grandchildren. Look at how US soldiers looked in the past (slim, strong and on average taller than the Europeans) and today.

    What has changed? Today, most mothers work and so there is simply no time to prepare a simple meal from raw materials for the children. So today most children have cereals for breakfast and french fries with a hamburger and a cola for lunch, often at school. This is obesity and diabetes food

    In the fifties most people would have an egg or two for breakfast with ham for breakfast, and mom would prepare the family lunch often containing meat.

    Please believe me, there are more than enough natural resources to feed a world population that would be double of what we have today. Africa and northern Asia have huge reserves. There, the land is not scarce, what is scarce is roads, warehouses, machines and trained people to do the work. Capital, money and human, are the limiting factor.

    You better think about how the wasting of capital, how the constant devaluation of savings of the poor and the middle classes can be stopped.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2025-02-02 20:51:55 +1100
    If it’s that easy to produce food, then we can afford to give everyone a balanced diet for free. Doing so would also do wonders for productivity. Hungry and miserable workers are not very productive.

    In any case, we certainly cannot keep growing our numbers for long. More than half of the Earth’s habitable land is already being used for agriculture. It’s easy for older generations to moan about declining birth rates, since they won’t have to deal with the consequences of continued environmental destruction.
  • Jürgen Siemer
    commented 2025-02-02 20:18:17 +1100
    Paul, you have obviously no real experience in the global agriculture and food industry. Let me assure you, I have.

    Look at the best indicators for scarcity: prices, the are still low.

    Where we do have strongly rising priced, for instance in cocoa, these price increases are not the result of a shortage of cocoa plantations but of underinvestment in the existing plantations by the farmers- due to past LOW profitability.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2025-02-02 18:47:38 +1100
    Mr Siemer, it would make much more sense to reduce the birth rate and make sure everyone is fed before we even consider silly goals like increasing the GDP or filling every square inch with people. If we keep going the way we’re going, every flat piece of land will be used for agriculture before long.

    Do you know what led to the Rwandan genocide? It wasn’t tribal tension and hatred. It was lack of food. Those who were struggling to survive were easily persuaded to slaughter their neighbors and take their possessions. Poverty creates desperation and violence.

    The more people there are, the less valued everyone is. It’s unavoidable. Large populations lead to lower wages and higher crime rates.
  • Jürgen Siemer
    commented 2025-02-02 18:36:38 +1100
    Dear Paul, I have read your stupid statement, that we could not feed all, so many times.

    There are enough natural resources to feed double the global population with our current knowledge and technology.

    What is, however, in short supply soon, is the labor required to produce the food or the capital required to finance the labor saving technologies.

    Capital is going to get scarcer, because so much is wasted by the growing governments and needed for pensions of the elderly, and because the children without siblings cannot finance the significant age-related costs of their own parents.
  • Arthur Goldberg
    followed this page 2025-02-02 09:49:14 +1100
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2025-02-01 17:20:25 +1100
    Decline and Prosper!: Changing Global Birth Rates and the Advantages of Fewer Children Paperback by Vegard Skirbekk is much more level-headed. It also looks at issues beyond GDP, like the environment.

    The environment is more important than the economy. If we can’t feed everyone, there can be no economy.
  • Tom Bowen
    commented 2025-02-01 17:12:57 +1100
    Read the book “The Age of Decay: How Aging and Shrinking Populations could Usher in the Decline of Civilization” (available on Amazon)
  • mrscracker
    I’ve worked with a federal agency that assists the poor to find housing Mr. Bunyan. That’s meant to keep people from having to live on the streets.
    You have a blessed night.
    :)
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2025-02-01 13:56:59 +1100
    Are you willing to live on the streets and beg for food and shelter, mrscracker?

    If you aren’t, then you don’t believe your own platitude.
  • Friend
    followed this page 2025-02-01 06:21:58 +1100
  • mrscracker
    Mr. Bunyan, I worked with federal assisted housing & it’s true that we have addicted, mentally unwell, & destitute homeless people who really do live in squalid conditions but those who are simply “poor” can qualify for housing vouchers, food stamps ( cards these days), Medicaid, free school meals, etc.
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2025-01-31 23:35:39 +1100
    That platitude doesn’t provide comfort to those living in squalid misery in the slums of the world’s wealthiest nation, mrscracker.
  • mrscracker
    Blessed are the poor Mr. Bunyan for they shall inherit the Earth.
    :)
  • Paul Bunyan
    commented 2025-01-31 16:18:14 +1100
    Why would anyone have children, especially in the US?

    Unless you’ve already inherited great amounts of wealth (or have light skin, which makes life easier in many other areas), having children is more likely to be a one-way trip to abject poverty than anything else.
  • Emberson Fedders
    commented 2025-01-31 14:30:42 +1100
    Capitalism is anti-family, yet most pro-natalists vote right wing, the pro-capitalism side of politics.
  • Janet Grevillea
    commented 2025-01-31 10:48:53 +1100
    Interesting interview about the rounding up of citizens of Japanese background, many born in the USA, during WW2, some of whom were deported to Japan. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/latenightlive/usa-migrants-border-japanese-factchecking-post-truth/104820438
  • mrscracker
    You know, Mr. Trump was criticized by some of his supporters when he said he was in favor of finding ways to bring in more immigrants. Grandfathering could be one way to do that.
    It’s hard to find a humane balance between keeping our immigration out of the hands of organized crime & making reasonable exceptions for those already here.
    We have to put the brakes on rewarding the trafficking gangs & secure the border until we come up with a workable plan.
    Sadly, illegal immigration has become such a perfect political football that we have little incentive to fix it. It always gets either side votes in an election.
    We’re on the receiving end of the border smuggling operations. It’s a 2 way street. Both sides have to benefit for smuggling to continue but few folks in the US seem to understand that.
  • Anon Emouse
    commented 2025-01-30 23:42:13 +1100
    It’s a shame, mrscracker, that the person you voted for (assuming you voted for Trump) ran on a platform of mass deportations, without the nuance or allowing those who have been here a path to citizenship.
  • mrscracker
    It’s something to think about before we commence deporting people who arrived illegally. Assuming that they came with good intentions to work in the US.
    I’m not in favor of open borders and we have to shut down the human smuggling and drug trafficking . But folks who have already come here by whatever means and are an asset to their communities might be grandfathered in.
    Our work force will continue to age and shrink and we need to look at our immigration and visa policies to see how we can bring more young people here legally and lawfully. Not at the hands of the cartels.
  • Louis T. March
    published this page in The Latest 2025-01-30 22:36:37 +1100