EQUIPOISE

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An article in the September 13 issue of the Economist https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/09/11/dont-panic-about-the-global-fertility-crash reports on very recent demographic trends. A key point is that the widespread tendency toward lower fertility is advancing more rapidly than was anticipated by current UN Population Projections. The Economist cites certain examples including Thailand reaching a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 1.0 in 2024 rather than the expected 1.2 and Columbia reaching a TFR of 1.2 instead of 1.4, but the trend seems to extend to many countries. An exception is sub-Saharan Africa where fertility rates remain high, although recently starting to tend downward.

Demographers have often assumed that the downward trend in TFR will eventually reverse and that national and worldwide populations will stabilize rather than inexorably converging on zero.  But what if that is not the case? The Economist published some calculations with different assumptions about global TFR resulting in dramatic effects on projected future populations. For example, the most recent UN analysis is for a population peak of over 10 billion occurring in the 2080’s, but if current TFR trends continue for 25 years, the Economist projection is for a peak of somewhat over 9 billion occurring by 2060, followed by a rapid decline. This brings the prospect of a much less populous world closer to hand.

In an accompanying article the Economist counters some of the doom and gloom that pro-natalists associate with population decline. However, as might be expected given the venue, the analysis is focused on financial and economic manipulations rather than broader social and environmental issues.

All of this is good news to me since I believe that the surest way to protect the environment against mankind’s depredations is simply to have fewer people. However, I remain somewhat skeptical both about the trend and about the Economist’s relatively rosy view of its consequences. As I have pointed out elsewhere (https://epittetoepitteto.blog/2025/08/06/you-are-wrong-population-reduction-can-have-a-major-role-in-saving-the-planet-the-2050-fallacy/ )  population projections are far from being reliable, with large discrepancies depending on the time of the projection and who is doing the projecting. Although recent attempts by authoritarian regimes (China, Hungary) to reverse the decline in their TFR’s have largely failed, it remains possible that new strategies or technologies could enforce renewed population growth.

Additionally, major changes in global population will be taking place concurrently with equally dramatic changes in climate and in the entire organization of the economy. Some of the areas still experiencing high population growth will also be those most affected by rising temperatures associated with global warming. Thus, the possibility of massive climate driven immigration cannot be discounted. Further, rapid advances in AI will revolutionize the economy, radically altering the balance of power between capital and labor. Clearly there needs to be some very creative thinking about the nexus between population trends, environmental issues and an AI driven economy if we are to manage the next few decades without total disaster.