One statistic that stopped me recently is that China’s population is projected by some experts to halve by the end of the century. Halve! China was the most populous country in the world until only three years ago. Birthrates in Italy, Germany and Japan have been low for as long as I can remember. They’re now falling across the world.
So what does it mean for humanity when humanity is shrinking? Will it solve climate change by reducing the human footprint? Reduce the disruption of artificial intelligence taking human jobs? My colleague Amanda Taub, who writes The Interpreter newsletter, has done a lot of reporting on the disruptive power of demographic change. Her assessment is sobering.
The world’s birthrates are plunging.
China’s government revealed last month that its birthrate had plummeted to the lowest level on record since 1949. The U.S. said its population had grown at one of its slowest rates ever, caused in part by an immigration slowdown but also by a decades-long decline in fertility rates. Similar trends can be found around the globe, including in India, South Korea, Italy, Colombia and Mexico.
All this means the global population is on track to start shrinking in the next 50 to 60 years. That has enormous negative implications for the world’s economic productivity, innovation capacity and political stability.
