The world's fertility rate fell from 5.3 to 2.2 in sixty years
For most of history humanity grew at a crawl, roughly 0.04 percent a year. After 1800 growth soared, peaking at 2.1 percent during the post-war baby boom. Since then the average number of children per woman has collapsed, from 5.3 children in 1963 to just 2.2 by 2023, and projections suggest global growth could hit zero this century.
Depopulation simply means a shrinking human population. Globally numbers are still rising, but more slowly each decade: annual growth was down to 0.9 percent in 2023. Some countries have already tipped over. Japan was shrinking by about 0.5 percent a year in 2023 and China, past its peak, by around 0.2 percent. Europe as a whole is projected to be losing 0.3 percent a year by 2050. The fall in fertility has happened in every part of the world.
Demographers call the pattern in rich societies birth dearth. It is sharpest in Western Europe, Japan, Russia and South Korea, but it also touches the United Kingdom and the United States and poorer regions from the Balkans to Sub-Saharan Africa. Long-term decline can stem from low birth rates, high mortality, emigration and falling marriage rates, while sudden drops follow economic crises, epidemics, famine and war.
History offers plenty of short, sharp examples. The Black Death swept Eurasia, and Old World diseases devastated the Americas during colonisation. The Irish Famine of 1845 to 1852, triggered by potato blight, cut Ireland's population by 20 to 25 percent between 1841 and 1871. The Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century may have reduced medieval Hungary's population by 20 to 40 percent. Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union suffered roughly 60 million excess deaths in the first half of the twentieth century from wars, famines and disasters, and the Late Bronze Age collapse of the twelfth century BCE remains a mystery.
Whether shrinking is good or bad depends on productivity. A nation that raises output per worker faster than its population falls could see its economy, living standards and environment improve; one that cannot will likely suffer. So far, governments facing decline have focused on the economic risks and tried to expand and strengthen their workforces.
Source: Population decline
