Despite the research presented in Trends and elsewhere,
most of the world’s political leaders still seem worried about a “population explosion”
in the coming decades:
China is still vigorously pursuing its “one child” policy by
punishing parents who disobey the law. In India, abortion is such a common
“family planning tool,” that the British medical journal The Lancet1 estimates that 10 million
female fetuses have been aborted over the past two decades.
Even the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has written an article
calling the expected increase in
the world’s population by 2050 an “impending calamity.”
Johnson is correct that a demographic calamity is likely to
occur by the middle of the century. But he — and all of the other politicians
and pundits who are worried about the population explosion — are making a huge
miscalculation: The reality is that the world’s population will be shrinking,
not growing.
Why? In the past half-century, birthrates have dropped by 50
percent. Today, 59 countries, representing 44 percent of the world’s
population, are below the replacement fertility rate.
Replacement fertility is defined as 2.1 births per woman, which is
the rate needed to keep the population at its current level. Amazingly, the
continent of Europe is at a birthrate of just 1.3, and none of the
countries in Europe has a replacement-level birthrate.
To understand this, consider the birthrates of a few specific
countries:
- Czech Republic 1.17
- Republic of Korea 1.17
- Ukraine 1.17
- Spain 1.24
- Bulgaria 1.24
- Russian Federation 1.25
- Italy 1.26
- Greece 1.28
- Poland...
