‘How do you grow an economy without young people?’ What falling birth rates mean

This story is part of the July 30 edition of Good Weekend.See all 15 stories.

Falling birth rates across nearly all the developed world – and now much of the developing world – have demographers like Paul Morland concerned. While the planet as a whole is projected to be home to 9.8 billion people by 2050 – up from 7.96 billion today – a vast number of countries, from within Europe to South-East Asia to the Americas, are dealing with decades of sub-replacement fertility, which means a total fertility rate (TFR) below the 2.1 required for a woman to replace herself and her partner.

Australia, for example, has not had a fertility rate above 2.1 since 1976, and without generations of immigration, would have a much smaller, less diverse – and somewhat older – population than it enjoys today.

In his new book, Tomorrow’s People: The Future of Humanity in Ten Numbers, Morland, an academic visitor at St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, reveals how changing population dynamics will help determine prosperity, the balance of power between nations, and the mass movement of peoples in coming decades. While there’s a popular belief that low fertility is limited to a handful of countries such as Japan (with a TFR of 1.4), Singapore (1.1), Taiwan (1.2) and Italy (1.3), declining birth rates are now more the rule than the exception across vast areas of the globe.

Morland, a father of three adult children, insists we are now living through what’s being called a “demographic transition”.

You’ve written of an “infertile crescent” now stretching from Spain to Singapore, accompanied by fast-ageing populations ... Educated, urban and prosperous people tend towards smaller family sizes. As education, urbanisation and prosperity have spread globally, so has sub-replacement fertility rates. Once the preserve of north-west Europe, low fertility spread to the rest of Europe, then to other developed regions like Japan and East Asia. Today, the demography is running ahead of the development, so that even still relatively poor countries like Thailand have low fertility rates. A lot of African countries – particularly in sub-Saharan Africa – aren’t there yet.

Still, the population of the world is increasing, isn’t it – in large part due to the booming populations in parts of Africa? In the pre-modern world, high birth rates occurred with tragically high rates of infant mortality to temper population growth. Now the historical preference for large families is combined with mercifully lower levels of infant mortality and higher levels of healthcare to create one of the biggest population explosions in history. Africa’s population growth has been stupendous, from around one in 14 people in the world in 1950 to around one in seven today. But outside sub-Saharan Africa, fertility rates are dropping, across South America and even places like Afghanistan.

Demographer Paul Morland, author of a new book  on world-wide birth rates: Tomorrow’s People: The Future of Humanity in Ten Numbers.  

Many greet the news that fertility rates are dropping across most of the world as a blessing for the planet, which is under relentless environmental assault. It is certainly an environmental blessing that, thanks to lower fertility rates, the world’s population is now growing at roughly 1 per cent a year as opposed to 2 per cent a year, which was the case 40 or so years ago. And the slowdown continues. But it has a downside. In Britain, there are no longer significant inflows into the workforce due to demography; there are slightly less early-20s becoming workers as early-60s ceasing to be. We are approaching an era of acute labour shortages in much of the world – and robots are not yet ready to come to our assistance. Ageing also gives rise to challenges such as the provision of healthcare and the funding of taxes.

“We are approaching an era of acute labour shortages in much of the world – and robots are not yet ready to come to our assistance.”

That’s happening in Australia as well. Japan, which has traditionally resisted immigration, is in worse shape, with a shrinking population and stagnant economic growth. One publication recently declared a “declining birth rate state of emergency”. At about the time Japan’s workforce peaked, its economic growth started to decline. Japan is still a rich and successful economy but combining low fertility with a resistance to immigration means it is baking in a stagnant economy. The government’s efforts to counter this through fiscal and monetary means have left a pile of debt but little growth.

You write in Tomorrow’s People that we have already reached what Swedish statistician Hans Rosling called “peak child”. What does this mean? The world’s total population has not yet peaked, but its number of children more or less has. Older, smaller cohorts will die off and be replaced by the bigger ones, who have already been born – and that is what will drive population growth. But the number of the young will stop growing, if it has not already, and the global population will age.

So we’re headed for a warmer, overcrowded and older planet as the 21st century advances? Yes, we are ageing as a planet. The big population hitters like China are moving in the same direction. China already has a higher mean age than the United States and is getting old very quickly. The average age of a person in Catalonia, Spain, is 43. Falling fertility rates mean nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century.

The population of Nigeria – now 206 million – is expected to reach 401 million by 2050. Are we seeing a greater gulf between countries with high fertility rates and low fertility rates? It is very much a question of sub-Saharan Africa versus the rest. Outside that region, fertility rates are either low or falling. A few countries like Sri Lanka have managed decades in the two-plus zone, but many others have slipped below it. China has, India is about to. Even countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan have seen sharp falls. Within Africa, there is a complex pattern. South Africa and its neighbours have successfully brought down their fertility rates. Kenya and Ethiopia are doing so. But progress in much of the continent is halting at best.

For decades now, Australia’s population has only increased because of immigration, which ground to a halt with the onset of COVID-19. We have a rapidly ageing population, but immigration by itself can’t keep a population young, can it? Immigrant fertility rates converge with host societies’ fertility rates and fertility rates in the host countries are now much lower, so no, immigration is not a panacea. A country like Australia with a relatively small population, which is highly attractive to migrants, can keep going for a while. If China wanted to keep its population young through migration, it would have to suck in the youth of the world.

Italy and Japan are expected to see their populations halve by 2100. Only large-scale immigration could prevent this... Large-scale immigration can be destabilising for a country. Would Italy still be Italy if its culture was overwhelmed, for example? Immigration has enormous benefits but needs to be carefully managed.

In one recent TV interview, you spoke of the paradox of one low-fertility, ageing country, Russia, attacking another, Ukraine. When Russian mothers are sending their only sons off to war, and thousands are coming back in body bags, will it reduce public support for a war? It should. The problem in Russia’s case is there is not a very free flow of information; also, the mechanisms by which a discontented population can change policies are not clear. But this will be a pressure against the indefinite continuation of the war. Russia has been accused of genocide and war crimes, including deporting tens of thousands of Ukrainians. Is this a demographic strategy: trying to weaken and wipe out a culture? Numbers matter here. The group or nation with the larger numbers has an advantage. The strategies the larger group adopts to win this battle, including genocide, can be catastrophic for smaller populations.

Are authoritarian countries better positioned to bump up their fertility rate? Two years ago, Vladimir Putin announced plans to increase Russia’s average birth rate. Has it worked? It’s falling again in Russia now and never got up that much. Nicolae Ceausescu tried to increase fertility rates in Romania by banning contraception but that was more than 50 years ago; it would be harder to do now. In Romania, the orphanages filled up and eventually the fertility rate went down as people found ways around the government’s efforts. Banning abortion is also problematic. Whatever we do in the West, it has to be about freedom of choice. The idea that we can raise birth rates by banning abortion or contraception is illusory as well as wrong.

Developed countries with higher fertility rates have relatively progressive approaches to women in the workforce, and are also relaxed about childbirth outside marriage, says Morland.Credit: Getty Images

You’ve said that if a society encourages women to get an education but frowns on those who combine family and career, women will often choose the interesting job rather than the joys of motherhood. This is what has happened in socially conservative countries like Italy and South Korea, isn’t it? Yes, and Japan. Developed countries with higher fertility rates, such as the UK, Scandinavia and France, not only have relatively progressive approaches to women in the workforce but are also relaxed about childbirth outside marriage. So pro-natalism should not be associated with the patriarchy or gender inequality.

Population can affect the rise and fall of empires, right? In 1900 the Russian Empire had a population of 136 million; today it’s barely larger, at 146 million, and rural depopulation has been staggering, with up to 20,000 villages abandoned, as you write in your book. By contrast, the US had a population of 76 million in 1900 and now boasts nearly 330 million. Why the stark contrast in population fortunes? First, Russia got to really low fertility rates earlier than the US. Second, it lost much territory – the Russian Empire included today’s Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic states, Central Asia, and so on – and their populations. Third, the US continues to be a magnet for migration. There has been some immigration in Russia from the states of the former Soviet Union but nothing like the scale of migration to the US from all over the world. Then there has been substantial emigration from Russia; Jews, for example, have left in their
hundreds of thousands.

Religion plays a big role in the number of children women have as well, doesn’t it? Israeli women have nearly three times as many children as Singaporean women, although they’re just as educated. This is the most interesting area in demography now. How is it that some value systems drive higher fertility, others lower, and what are the consequences? In the US, people on the right have larger families. In Israel, even secular people have a relatively large number of children. If everywhere is going to become urban, educated and prosperous and we are not to die out as a human race, we have to learn something from the societies which have succeeded in modernising while maintaining above-replacement fertility rates. People have to believe in something, including their country or people, and want to sustain it, and/or love the idea and reality of bringing new life into the world.

Yet nowhere has fertility fallen as fast as in fundamentalist Iran. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is now calling for policies to boost population growth. There is plenty of data to suggest that Iranians are anti-religious. The mullahs anyway promoted smaller family sizes, scared by the surging population they faced back in the 1980s. Now they are backtracking but, as in China, where one-child policies are being reversed, they are having little success.

“In the US, the more religious the state, the higher the fertility rate, and they tend to be more conservative.”

Do fertility rates reflect political leanings? Yes. In the US, the more religious the state, the higher the fertility rate, and they tend to be more conservative. It was the so-called heartland states that voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020.

By having more children, are conservatives effectively breeding their way to election victory? Not necessarily. The problem for them is that, unlike many religiously conservative groups, the politically conservative don’t necessarily get to win over their children’s political views.

You’ve equated government policies designed to increase low birth rates by encouraging women to have more children with trying to push water uphill. Why is that? China has progressively relaxed its controls since
officially abandoning its one-child policy in January 2016. Countries like Hungary and Russia have poured resources into raising fertility rates but the impact is limited. I believe it’s all about values, and that the ability of governments to impact them is limited. What really matters are the priorities of individuals, which can only be nudged by government, not fundamentally changed.

While many governments in Asia have been trying to increase birth rates, Indonesia, with a fertility rate of 2.26, has been encouraging people to have fewer kids. Indonesia has had great success in bringing down its fertility rate from about 5.5 to about 2.5 in the last 30 years of the 20th century. Today it’s benefiting from a demographic dividend, with plenty of young people entering the workforce. Indonesia has succeeded in staying in the Goldilocks zone of fertility – not too high and not too low – for about a quarter of a century.

It’s been in the news that India will surpass China as the world’s most populous country next year. Has this happened a lot sooner than you expected?​ This was expected to happen some time in the 2020s. China has probably had the world’s largest population since it became a state. This is the first time it will be surpassed for thousands of years. And it will be hit by a demographic tsunami in the coming years. In any case, China was heading for a big slowdown: look at the fall in fertility rates among Chinese communities outside China – Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia. A society like China, which rapidly urbanised and developed and got educated, was bound to have a sharp fall in fertility rates. It would be a bit less sharp and dramatic had there been no one-child policy, but it would have been a problem anyway. Now, a slightly worse problem than would otherwise have imposed itself will be entirely blamed on the Communist Party for its heartless policy. And any efforts now from the Communist Party to reverse course and get people to have more children will have little credibility.

India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country next year.Credit: Getty Images

The decline of marriage and the nuclear family is also playing a role in declining fertility, right? Nearly 30 per cent of Singaporean women between 30 and 39 are single; in Japan, the figure is more than 25 per cent, and in South Korea nearly 34 per cent. What’s happening in these countries? Modern societies seem to require a relaxed attitude to family. Where childbearing outside marriage is taboo, fertility rates are low. This includes countries like Italy and Greece. If you want a half-way decent level of fertility, you need to dissociate “unmarried” and “childless”.

Are large families fading away, especially in the developed world? There is a trend towards richer couples having a third child in some countries, but larger families, yes, are declining.

You write that demography has driven history and is fast reshaping the world today, but not many people are talking about it. Why is that? Demography really matters. The danger is if we don’t discuss these things, and sweep them under the carpet, you leave the discussion vacuum to extremists who try to sow division over high immigration or what they call the West’s population crisis. We need to have a sensible discussion. Yes, we need children to keep our nations young and vital; how do you manage and grow an economy without enough young people? It would be nice if fertility rates were a bit more even across the globe and if population growth could be sustainable.

Much has been made over the past 20 years of falling sperm rates worldwide. Is this playing any role – even a very minor one – in fewer babies being born? I honestly don’t know. The evidence suggests that most couples still get pregnant fairly quickly if they want to and if they start early enough. A bigger problem is the delay in starting a family with an insufficient understanding of how fertility falls off for women, in particular over the course of their 30s.

In countries like Taiwan and Singapore, where fertility rates are at record lows, could they drop even further or have they levelled off?​ We tend to think that fertility rates cannot get any lower – and then they do. There is absolutely no reason in principle why fertility rates should not drop below one child per woman. But even if they don’t, the idea of successive generations being half the size or even two-thirds of the size of previous ones is staggering. Run the numbers and in a century or so (say three or four generations) the country starts to disappear.

Overall, is the world transitioning to universally low fertility rates? Yes, from about 5.0 in the mid-1960s to below 2.5 today. The biggest drivers at the global level have been the fertility falls first in China, then India, which are population giants and so move the global dial.

Meanwhile, we still face the challenges of an increasing global population, because of the momentum of increases in the past, is that right? Yes. In the UK – and, I suspect, Australia is similar – we have had half a century of sub-replacement fertility, but if the older and dying-off generations are small and the baby-bearing generation is big, then it takes a long time for the population actually to start falling absent of immigration. In the UK, deaths are set to come close to outstripping births at some time in the coming decade.

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