Health, Wealth and Birth Rates

That rich countries see population crashes, as wealth grows, has been known for some decades ...

The End Of Babies?

.... and it has long been noted that even within a country, the richer you are, the less likely you are to have a large family, than poorer sections of that society are.

Historically, one of the contributions towards the decline of at least the western half of the Roman Empire, was that the birth rate had declined, and the proportion of slaves to citizens had risen. They simply didn't have the free population to man the legion,s and so employed German mercenaries instead .... and we all know how that ended.

China has seen a rapid rise in prosperity in the last 30 to 35 years or so, and this, coupled with the one child policy introduced in 1979 (amended to two children in 2016, and now three children), has still seen the lowest number of births recorded since the 1960s. 

Now in the West, we have seen this same phenomena since at least 1950, if not earlier. In China, there is also another factor, other than child education costs, schooling concerns (amid the fast rising general costs of living), and other priorities such as women's careers. This is, the severe gender imbalance in the country that was a direct result of the one child policy. Social prejudice in Asia generally (from the Middle East to India through to China), favours having boys not girls and so more boys were born (or rather weren't terminated).

The reasons vary for this bias, from dowry cost concerns, to family name desires, but in China it meant that if only one child could be had, then better it be a boy .... so the illegal forced abortions of female foetuses from the 1980s onwards, led to glut of new born boys .... so that by 2020 there were 34.9 million more males than females ... this has since contributed to the falling birth rates.

This phenomenon of falling birth rates (which is not necessarily a bad thing when you consider global warming, pollution and resources running out), has a secondary impact, in that the average age of the populations rise e.g. In Britain there were pre-covid-19, over 13,300 people aged greater than 100, a rise of 11 per cent according to the Office of National Statistics. The number of people over the age of 90 is also at a new record high after a 3.6 per cent rise to 605,181. This would be a good thing in a society that wasn't suffering a population drop, but this rise  means less people to pay taxes for the care of the old.

But it is not just a developed countries issue. In fact globally, falling fertility rates mean nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century. In at least 23 nations - including Spain and Japan - they are expecting to see their populations halve by 2100. 

When the fertility rate number falls below approximately 2.1, then the size of the population of a country starts to fall, and the global fertility rate nearly halved to 2.4 in 2017. Some projections say it will fall below 1.7 by 2100. This fall in birth rates is because increasing global wealth allows more women to get educated, and thus enter the work force, as well as granting them greater individual access to contraception (with jobs they control their own funds and spending), leading to women choosing to have fewer children for career and health reasons. 

This is why many socially backward groups often rail against women having civil rights or access to education and contraception etc E.g. The Saudi hard-liners, or the Taliban in Afghanistan, who locked women in houses unless accompanied by a husband or male guardian (and may well do so again). Another example of this backward attitude, is that in June 2020 Iran ruled that male vasectomies can no longer be carried out at state-run medical centres, and birth control contraceptives are only to be offered to women whose health might be at risk. 

Some Societies Have Firm Views On A Woman's Role

The fall in birth rates in Iran was originally a state policy, but now may be being driven more by economic hardships, due to the sanctions imposed over its drive for nuclear power (or bombs - take your choice). that could easily trigger a nuclear conflict in the Middle East.

But assuming that women's rights are not reversed in many countries, and that social justice and progress continue to advance, there will be some dramatic changes in many countries. For example:

• Japan's population is projected to fall from a peak of 128 million in 2017, to less than 53 million by the end of the century.
• Italy is also expected to see a dramatic population collapse, from 61 million to 28 million over the same time-frame.
• Even the UK is predicted to population peak at 75 million in 2063, and then fall to 71 million by 2100.
• As well the previously mentioned Spain and Japan, another 21 countries - which also include Portugal, Thailand and South Korea, are expected to see their populations more than halve.

Elsewhere, China, currently still the most populous nation in the world, is expected to reach a maximum of around 1.4 billion residents in 2025, before nearly halving to 732 million by 2100 (although they have now authorised 3 children per couple in an effort to avert this decline). India will take its place with the worlds largest population, even though they will also see declines over the rest of the century.

Of course there is always going to be one area of the world that goes against trend .... Africa. The population of sub-Saharan Africa is still expected to treble in size over the rest of this century, to more than three billion people by 2100, with Nigeria becoming the world's second most populated country, with a population of 791 million.

This is because sub-Saharan Africa simply has failed to join in with the post second world war race to wealth growth, that the vast majority of the rest of the world has experienced ... this despite starting ahead of many countries at the end of the colonial era in the 1960s. The reasons for this lack of development economically and socially, are often debated, but very quietly, because the most obvious answer is a taboo subject (particularly at the moment). 

But the net result of all this global demographic change is that, Africa not withstanding, the worlds population is now expected to peak at 9.7 billion around 2064, before falling down to 8.8 billion by the end of this century. If Africa wasn't so far behind the rest of the world, it would also have seen a net decline in population, and the global fall would have been to a more resource sustainable 6.8 billion.

However Thomas Malthus may still have the last laugh though, because how we get safely from today to the year 2100 is not obvious as for at least another decade or two, the trend everywhere will still be upwards, and we are already struggling globally to cope with finding the required resources such as food and power, and potable water for the current populations.