Declining global fertility rates will have an ‘immense’ implication on the ‘global economy’ and ‘international balance of power’
There are more people dying then there are being born and it’s freaking countries out.
In recent years, certain countries have come up with financial incentives for its citizens in a bid to actually encourage them to have children and tackle falling birth rate numbers. But why?
Declining fertility rates: what does it mean?
Well, the population growth rate has been slowing down in recent years – and pretty rapidly at that.
Fertility rates – ‘the average number of children per women’ – across the globe have been reducing with it accepted that if it stands higher than 2.1, the population increases, any lower and it decreases.
Our World in Data reports that the current global fertility rates for 2024 stands at 2.25.
It explains: “This has happened at different rates worldwide, as you can see in the chart. Fertility rates in Europe, the Americas, and Asia are now below or close to two children per woman. Across Africa, this figure is higher but has also fallen significantly. In the 1970s, it was almost seven children per woman. Today, it’s almost four. And the UN expects rates to keep dropping to less than three in 2050 and approaching two by the end of the century.”
In Northern America, fertility rates measured at 3.76 in 1958, but as of 2024 stand at 1.59, Asia has dropped to 1.88, Latin America and the Caribbean to 1.80 and Europe to 1.40.
And The Spectator even alleges the overall figure given by the UN World Population Prospects of 2.25 is actually wrong and it’s actually lower than the 2.1 replacement fertility level.
But what does this all mean?
The impact
IHME Health Data states the ‘dramatic declines in global fertility rates [are] set to transform population patterns by 2100’.
“By 2050, over three-quarters (155 of 204) of countries will not have high enough fertility rates to sustain population size over time; this will increase to 97 percent of countries (198 of 204) by 2100,” it quotes from The Lancet.
Basically, it means that for the first time in around 60,000 years, people are not having babies quick enough to replace the amount of people who are dying.
However, despite falling fertility levels, that doesn’t mean the population of the planet is expected to decline so much humans eventually will cease to exist or anything like that.
Some countries are offering citizens incentives to have kids (Getty Stock Images)
Future concerns
The Lancet adds that despite over 97 percent of countries and territories rates falling below necessary levels to sustain population size over time, ‘comparatively high fertility rates in numerous low-income countries, predominantly in Western and Eastern sub-Saharan Africa, will continue to drive population increases in these locations throughout the century’.
A UN Nation report published in 2022 states: “The current world population of 7.6 billion is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100.
“[…] With roughly 83 million people being added to the world’s population every year, the upward trend in population size is expected to continue, even assuming that fertility levels will continue to decline.”
However, the shift will ‘completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power and will necessitate reorganising societies’.
Lead Research Scientist from IHME Dr. Natalia V. Bhattacharjee resolved: “The implications are immense. These future trends in fertility rates and livebirths will completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power and will necessitate reorganising societies.
“Global recognition of the challenges around migration and global aid networks are going to be all the more critical when there is fierce competition for migrants to sustain economic growth and as sub-Saharan Africa’s baby boom continues apace.”
Featured Image Credit: Getty/Image Source/Getty/Sally Anscombe
