Statistics Korea reported a 0.18% on-year to 51.7 million at the end of 2021. In 2020, Statistics Korea projected this drop in population would start in 2029.
The number of expected babies per South Korean woman is poised to drop to the lowest level of 0.82, versus the previous record low of 0.84 recorded in 2020, which was also the world’s lowest for the year. In 2021, the number of babies born is forecast at 261,000, compared with last year’s 275,000.
People might say, well a shrinking population is no big deal. The South Korean projection (without antiaging technology) is that the median age of people in South Korea in 2070 will have increased from 44 to 62. Half of the people would be near the current retirement age or older. This will happen in Taiwan, Japan, and other Asian and European countries. The current retirement age in South Korea is 60.
Even if the number of babies is suppressed for 2-4 years because of the pandemic and their is a fertility rate recovery by 20%, the base of women in prime childbearing age is constantly dropping in Asian and European countries.
About 60-70% of women in Asia have babies when they are in their twenties. They are three times less likely to have babies in their thirties. They are 13 times less likely to have babies in their teens or past the age of forty.
The population pyramids show that the number of women in their twenties is dropping by 30-50% and are heading towards half in about 10-15 years. This can be seen by the number of women who are age 30 this year and are aging out into 31 versus how many are 19 and aging into the prime childbearing twenties.
Any change in attitude for the next generation to have kids at a higher rate would have to overcome the fact that there would be 50% to eventually 100% fewer women in their twenties.
In South Korea, women at each year from 30 to 40 is 300,000 to 375000 but those now 20-29 are 263,000 to 326,000 and those 10-19 are 222,000 to 245000 and in those 1 to 9 the numbers drop to 156000 to 220000.
The drop in half is happening in Taiwan. The number of females who are age 39 is 200,000 but the number of females at any age year under 16 is 90000 to 105000.
This drop can only be reversed with a massive generational shift towards having large families and huge pro-family policies or new technology that vastly improves fertility treatment effectiveness and availability. The population drop can also be slowed and possibly reversed if there is aging reversal technology success.
SOURCES- World Population Review, Ked Global
Written by Brian Wang, Nextbigfuture.com
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
There will be a lot less wars and violence in general as well. There was a study that many wars and conflicts are partially a result of excess males.
Part of the Great Divide in the US is between family-focused culture (largely considered "conservative" regardless of party affiliation, and a popular/elite culture which openly disdains everything to do with reproduction.
This suggests that Group1 will simply outgrow Group2 and render a pro-natal stance more commonplace.
The question, as I see it, is: "Do the Asian countries marking notable childbirth declines have similar cultural divides, or are attitudes relatively homogenous?"
Global population growth is not in decline. There have been more than 4 million more births than deaths so far this January. Probably, anyway. There could still be some doubt, given Covid-19 and poor or politically modified records in many countries. Not the general trend though.
I also think there will be a coming boom when there are artificial wombs, and low defect children. When the defects can be fixed with genetic surgery when there are only a few cells, it will be a great relief to many people.
But none of this is what I really am here to say. I just want to point out that the Renaissance happened at least partly because of the Black Death. The decline in population meant that there were more resources, developed resources, for everyone. This meant more time for leisure, and the arts.
Of course, there are better ways to increase the amount of developed resources relative to population than the death of 1/3 to 2/3 of them. Automation, especially automated mines, lots of nuclear power poured into industry, the chemical synthesis of food and fiber, the recycling of everything…
https://dailyhistory.org/How_did_the_Bubonic_Plague_make_the_Italian_Renaissance_possible
Self-imposed population decline by having less children, could be a blessing in disguise, even if temporary. Though it really has only happened at the country and region level. There are plenty of people that can immigrate. Less pressure on resources is what we need for broad Solar System settlement.
Not a new thing, just getting ever more notice.
Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline Hardcover – February 5, 2019
by Darrell Bricker  (Author), John Ibbitson (Author)
https://www.amazon.com/Empty-Planet-Global-Population-Decline/dp/1984823213/ref=asc_df_1984823213
Fetal rights will expand in the future regardless of which governments see them as a tool to address population issues. Technology development of prenatal imaging, prenatal surgery and medicine will make it harder and harder for people to deny the humanity of those yet to be born, while better contraceptives and artificial wombs will make the number of those who want to trample on fetal rights for their own convenience less and less.
How exactly do you get more ambitious-creativity career seekers if there are less people to be ambitious-creativity career seekers?
There is both the fear of collapsing future, not hard to understand given the oppressive "Club of Rome" on and on. But there is the far more crazy reaction of those who have invested their future power in the "small world" management job. Do as we say or the world will die! Actually, do as they say and the World WILL more likely die!
I do like that argument. They always get really quite when I say fine, is it cool if we put a billion people in space. It doesn't jive with their Malthusian ideals.
During most of history, children were workers. Now, we have machines and robots, so neurotics, who don't see reality, have no use for them.
Commie scum:
https://news.yahoo.com/xi-jinping-forced-10-000-101130286.html
They don't even realize they are neurotic, and humiliating themselves, in front of everybody, for all time, yet. Don't tell them, let them continue, they are soooo good at it.
Tell them to read "The High Frontier" by Gerard K. O'Neill. Save the Earth by leaving, helping from Space.
I don't understand the push for infinite growth. What is wrong with equilibrium? A culture that hits a sustainable way of living seems like a good thing. Exponential growth is never sustainable.Or
such is my experience too.
First siblings appear to be over-structured, over-nurtured, constantly monitored, and endlessly 'helicoptered'; which seems to be the typical parental repsonse to their first kid; a new thing that has unclear needs and which all reactions are hyper-protective and conservative. The freedom my younger sister had, in comparison, at least back in the free-for-all 90s, was shocking. She was, consequently, far more independent, exploratory, self-assured, and 'did her own thing'. She's the well-socialized fashion designer and I but dwell in the catacombs of an engineering firm.
We are growing in number, incels and virgins.
Statistically, firstborns are the least creative. And the later in the birth order, the more creative. Perhaps because kids often avoid doing what their older siblings are doing, as age and experience usually means those older kids are better at those things and defend their turf, even if it is only intellectual turf.
This is only a trend, not a law of nature or anything.
Fret not. The 2020/30s will be open to a much lower cost, off-the-grid, individual-empowering tech – from improved utilities to cheap/ ubiquitous communcation/ wealth movement. people will do just fine – just won't look like London or New York or Tokyo or Singapore…
Woah. woah.
Crazy pessimistic.
With the forthcoming super-abundance, poor countries need not re-invent the wheel, design and maintain their own super-tech, nor be obligated to 'keep up with the Joneses' at great cost and personal time commitment. If there is anything on the earth that the rich world got right, it's driving costs down and flooding the market with stuff… yay. This also works with water treatment, energy, transportation, computing, and communication. I forsee a day where rich world automated superfactories will pump out very cheap, useful stuff that poor countries can integrate into their civilizations without having to become part of the modern rat race… esentially an off-the-grid (at least national grid) system of essential tech – likely easy to tie into a larger econmic ecosystem. Almost a reverse-90s-China situation – no endless miles of factories full of rural-transplants supplying the world with cheap knock-offs, just 24/7 scalable printable tech mini-factories spread through US commercial areas with nothing but the occasoinal engineer and VC to lord over their people-less productions — also why we won't need increased rich world populations…
Agreed. The current pandemic's affect on tech, productivity, global trade, and immigration is a hard inflection point in the already inevitable stagnation and disaster-laden future that will pervade the poor 75% world going forward… others will bounce back, creating resentment and outright hostility… managing populations will be one of the main divergent outcomes.. with both having significant setbacks for different reasons…
I think it's important to realize that the world's countries are very different and that it is unlikely that there will be a common tech, culture, value set, and wealth level, ever. And without constant daily and, probably in addition, occasional disaster-based re-distribution of wealth, tech, and support from G7 countries to others, especially those below the G20, different population strategy approaches will continue to be suggested, attempted, and show varying degrees of success. These cultures will likely continue to stratify as tech and its basic understanding and maintenance (and cost) also accelerate. Such as: EV vehicles and its infrastructure which cannot be integrated 'organically' – most or nothing. Same with health, family infrastructure (schools, etc), and work opportunities — which influence family size and quantities, and their success. The solutions that work for G7 will not work for those in the lower G20 and below. The worst problems won't be population collapse but older cultures (most) that can no longer maintain their integrity in the face of being so far behind others, and yet so stubborn to modenizing. Then the violence. Then the radical groups…
I volunteer Sweden to go first.
I encourage you to file.
I think this describes a lot of what's happening, but Japan is still mostly a single-income household society, and their birthrate is quite low. Personally, I blame TV glamorizing the young single lifestyle. But yes, even so, artificial wombs and rejuvenation are probably the only realistic ways out of this.
yep. even a few counties that got rid of schools and child services to save money…
you'd be surprised. The 90% economy – those that will survive and persevere in this Brave New World – of work-home control have an out-sized influence on the economy and tech. Shame about much of the hospitality and live-entertainment world — but the strongest of those will be re-born — the north american and north european countries will bounce back and overtake previous late 2020s GDP estimates. Others? struggle, 70s style.
100% less = 50% as many. So it means, fall by half. To be fair, people mess up the wording on this all the time, so even if you know how it works, you have to wonder if your source is using it correctly.
"If anything, women should be made aware of the "human" risk to not having children." – what human risk are you talking about?
"It's a road to being unfulled as a human." – no, it's not.
forget not the enviro-anti-carbon movements. Increasingly less is more, like the 70s to 80s… may mean less civilization and progress and tech… with larger areas to remain wild, un-developed, conserved, and defended, there will be less interest in expanding/ growing – population to stagnate within G20 in next 10 – 20 years…. cap it at 9B??? very liberal, uncorporate, and decentralized may mean less push for typical school, hospital, retirement funding…
hah. with remote slacking and work-life balance having a whole new meaning from now on… we'll be lucky to support current debt and pension liabilities, much less seniors and future industrial/ commercial populations…
Productivity? I'm meeting gen-Xers who are about to retire in their mid-50s, having not even worked 30 years solid, full-time years — and will likely be expecting to be in a state of full- to semi-retirement for at least 30 – 40 years — retired LONGER than they worked… you can't run a country on that kind of input/ output ratio… many are taking not only 'gap years' but multi-year pre-career sabbaticals (???) Without a baseline of contributing citizenry, who cares about maintaining replacement babies???
Of course. And though, I don't typically align with non-merit-based immigration policies and activities — I do feel that a greater free movement of career and customer/ investor persons, based on long-term and permanent movement, will mean that the right population will get to the most opportunistic place at the right time… its all about maximizing production and opportunity — which necessarily provides the resources to support non-profit/ government initiatives…
All future productivity points to increased automation, smaller and better-quality family size, older families, happier singles, and more ambitious-creativity career seekers… average age of over 95 and families of 1.25 to 1.5 kids will create the most dynamic and stable population over the long-term.
When aging gets pushed a decade out for every generation past 2050, the entire replacement-philosophy will be over-turned.
Prediction: Traditional family child-raising wil fall to less than 50% of main source of new population in the last 2 – 3 decades of this century. Vats and child-centres and creches will dominate and what a great way to also indoctrinate and optimise the new….
Agreed. Really get into the productivity statistics and population utilization of these countries and many, many people are dead-weight with little ongoing investment, poor late-life productivity, and questionable commitment to any kind of useful post-retirement activity.
Meh.
Better-than-replacement populations are over-rated.
Optimize the existing and encourage egg freezing and easy late-stage pregnancy assistance.
We need to optimize the populations we currently support.
Human beings are the most valuable resource in the universe.
That's why I'm leaving you on Earth.
Not the whole "import foreign women, send them back with a stipend when we are done with them" part.
Utility patent?
These predictions are guaranteed to happen. The number of people in their 30s ten years from now cannot be greater than the number of people in their 20s right now.
Yes, the way out is self sorting and moving somewhere where people will have kids and society values quaint things like procreation. Space colony of some kind seems viable.
Please give us more of your fantastic wit! You are so original!
Nah, most women are just as stupid as most men, their stupidity is just of a different flavor. So the professional achievement of the average women is very, very, very modest.
Two things. I think that there is a massive propaganda in the West for women that working is much better than having children. Which is absolutely ludicrus when you think of it.
The average mom is doing a great job being a mom, whereas the average worker – both male and female – are doing rather boring stuff and fairly incompetently. Don't get me started on peoples inability to exercise basic reading comprehension in their line of work… So the first point on the agenda would be stop this counter productive propaganda. Both working and raising children is fine for women, not just working.
Second, most women who do not have children but a career do end up less satisfied/happy in the long term. So this whole – "women careers are so enticing that having children doesn't cut it any more" – is false. It's a road to being unfulled as a human. If anything, women should be made aware of the "human" risk to not having children. Second point on the agenda.
Third, there are a lot of measures that have not been tried. Yes, building out day care centers and the like is surely a part of the solution, but you could also try exempting women who have had given birth to many children from paying tax (see Hungary). Let this reform "work" long enough – two, three decades- and you would have changed the culture in a feed-back loop so that being a mother is a fine occupation while preventing birthing to be done exclusively by low income singel mothers. Or variations of this policy.
Replying to Stanely VM – You just described the opening of the movie ideocracy. The 40 year old career lawyer woman doesn't have the kid, that is the deal. I agree with your thoughts Stanley but I think you are coloring around the edges too gently. We have set up every societal road block to children we could at this point. We have empowered women and pushed career and they have responded. We have isolated people on phones and then stuck them on quarantine for 2 years, feeding them fear porn. We have told all young people that the earth will be a climate change hell scape in 20 years that is impossible to stop, and they believe it. We have told adolescent males that if they engage in any historically macho actions they will be metoo'd out of life. We have told them their is no god and its all pointless anyway. We have told them to run on the hamster wheel of 60 hours a week at jobs they hate and produce more wage slaves for us. We have taught them that the individual is the highest god and everyone must bow to their feelings, pronouns, etc; others including children are but obstacles to their enjoyment. How can anyone be surprised by the logical outcome.
China was in the middle of the echo baby boom. Where boomers after ww2 we’re having babies. And then they put in place one child policy
Hm… Would you want to live in a society of just women? I wouldn't. It would be radically different, because the different make up of the population would work in a feed-back loop to make it unrecognizable. And it would be worse.
My guess would be no space programs, no particle colliders, no extravant buildings. And the political discourse would be PC to the N:th degree. And the few male phycopaths would have an absolute field day, exploiting both normal males and females alike. I also forsee the culture being boring.
It would be such an utterly boring world.
It's is absolutely not an experiment worth having….
Western liberal education has been wildly successful. Most midwestern parents with college age kids I know, report their children will not have kids due to climate change. That is Midwest kids. I can't imagine the coasts.
Condom sales fell by 40% last year. I don't even know what to make of that figure.
Gotta be extra sensitive towards all the fragile egos.
The basic issue is, IMO, that economics favoring two income households caused too many women to age past peak fertility without choosing to have kids. I'm watching a female engineer in my office put it off, and she seems a bit unrealistic about her prospects of having a family late in life.
In my case, of course, we had one, then I had cancer, which closed the door to further kids. Otherwise we were intending to have 2-3.
If we got some kind of rejuvenation tech, that allowed the elderly enough energy and expected lifespan to contemplate raising children, perhaps coupled with artificial wombs for women past menopause, you could see a bit of a birth boomlet. I don't see what else pulls us out of this death spiral short of a serious crash.
Volunteering to start are you?
Funny
Yes, Aldous Huxley has the patent already.
Sounds like 70s O'Neill plans. Made possible by Janov. I like it! Too bad power addicts are not *only* trying to get richer.
Amazing. The less people on earth the better everyone else is.
As an aside, why is the population graph of China an odd shape? What caused the population fall 40 years ago? (Or the boom 30 years ago).
Does a falling population have to be bad, if it isn't due to some natural disaster?
Some believe having fewer young to provide for the needs of the retired is a problem. But we've got a large segment of our population working at stuff that clearly is not essential. So if the needs of the elderly create demand for more essential goods and services, employment could and probably would shift to more essentially productive activities.
And we've got a lot of unexploited automation potential we've not bothered to implement because of cheap off-shore labor. On top of that, near future improvements to robotics have been causing some to worry about people becoming unemployed needing a UBI.
And over the next 80 years we're very likely to get medical advances that will let people stay healthy and productive longer. So worst case, we can increase the Social Security age a bit faster than we have in the past.
How much is 100% less than something? These predictions seems apocalyptic in proportion.
I think we all got that the first time. But it's good that you left out the swipe at crypto gamer halfwits this time. You deserve a medal.
Crux of what I wrote was that women in developed nations are getting educated and doing things they want to do at a professional level, getting good at them, and then when it comes time to face the pretty scary prospect of pausing your career and doing what for most is the hardest thing you'll ever do (raising a kid), the pressures favor much higher quality, more financially dependable and generally effective partners.
Apparently the daughters of single mothers have better social outcomes than the sons. And we've known how to select a single gender from sperm for a few decades now (it's much easier and cheaper than IVF). This leads to a certain conclusion: encourage single moms to have fewer boys.
If the populace was 100% women, each women would only need to have 1 child to keep the population stable. And we'd just stop worrying about finding Mr. Right.
I'm not actually arguing for a single gender solution, just pointing it out as the obvious thought experiment. A lower percentage of women would need to have children, and/or have fewer of them, if a higher percentage of the population was women.
We know exactly how to do this. The only real barriers are that it sounds weird, and unplanned pregnancies don't get the benefit of selection.
We don't have a choice Jean, in the long run, breaking the mega society and returning to our original social structure of small, participatory, egalitarian and self sufficient communities is our best choice. Of course we are going to do it while miniaturizing our technology and incorporate it into the new structure to achieve an unprecedent quality of life. The value of having children in such an environment is self apparent. Out of the everyone to himself rat race imposed on us by the few 1% mostly psychopaths striving to become richer.
Doesn't sound much like you're really approaching it with much curiosity either. The whole "there just aren't enough quality men around and women have other options" idea has some merits, but it's been beaten around to death and isn't particularly holistic. We need some deeper analysis of this if we're going to get anywhere besides "throw some incentive programs around and see what sticks".
Spicy talk about crypto and porn habits sure gets your nubbins clickety clackin!
for 18 years??!! more like 30 where I'm from…
Is it too late to patent this idea?
"Not a lot of articles really demonstrating much curiosity about why women aren't having children."
Fresh out of Cryo? You picked a pretty good time to thaw.
Cabbage Patch, duh!
Something cosmopolitan, something European like "Kinderfarm"
Aww see its got "kind" in it. Mission accomplished.
I bet in a few decades the biggest problem will be "how do we get rid of all these economically useless people" and not "oh noes! we're quickly running out of the useless class. Please send us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breed with our local women. The local men just aren't up to the job anymore".
The population collapse nervous nellies can be just as shrill as the over population perils of Pauline crowd.
Hmmm. "Child Farm" needs wordsmithing.
"China can just grow children in farms, change my mind"
"I suspect there is no shortage of people wanting to have kids"
Au contraire mon frere, I assure you that 20% of zoomers cannot figure out which gender they are today.
How dare you question my unassailable, impeccable dad credentials.
There truly is every variety of cartoon coomer ghoul on the internet.
I mean maybe the CCP will farm raise children by importing birth mothers from places like Indonesia.
"Service guarantees citizenship! Birth ten children and qualify for lifetime compensation in your origin country!"
In all seriousness the "coerce people in to becoming parents for 18 years" approach isn't the right approach.
Just to head this off, I'm a dad.
"Pro family policies need to be juicy and woman centric."
Nah, just tax every man and woman who lacks a designated progeny. Oh what's that, you don't make any money because you sit on the couch and play GTA? Well dock your disability checks!
Just to head this off, I'm a dad.
Leave crypto out of this.
Just to head this off, I'm a dad.
"Totalitarian governments in Asia and elsewhere can more easily ban abortion rights, and take other more extreme measures"
Nah just set up state farms to grow children. Wards of the state from conception.
Yeah, tough problem.
When push comes to shove and we start having economic problems due to a population crunch, I suspect a lot of people will bet on 'cancelling' modernity and favor religious or traditional values, seen as "the cause" of the problem. The feared handmaid's tale scenario of sorts. As others noticed, it won't necessarily be the USA or the West the first ones trying that. Totalitarian governments in Asia and elsewhere can more easily ban abortion rights, and take other more extreme measures. They have already done that, in the other sense.
Others will bet on anti-aging, or more radical measures to allow anyone wanting to have kids, to have them, like artificial uteri and caretaker AIs.
I suspect there is no shortage of people wanting to have kids, just the inability to get the indispensable female partner, wiling to pass through all the process of pregnancy and giving birth, and even less several times. The surrogacy market says there are more people willing to have kids than those willing and able to.
The problem of raising kids into adulthood still remains regardless of how kids are born, but the more willing parents humanity can muster, the better. It's not the time to be picky.
Not a lot of articles really demonstrating much curiosity about why women aren't having children.
When you talk about generational shift towards large families… that's not men firing out all those kids with their bodies. Women have experienced a MASSIVE improvement in their potential to lead creative, working lives. This is what happens when nations develop, GDP rises, and women participate in the growth. Tell an independent working woman to mate with some available gamer crypto halfwit, and only a couple weeks paid leave!
The incentives to have children need to be huge, it can't just be the concern/scorn of men telling them what they ought to want… that likely has an even more chilling effect. Pro family policies need to be juicy and woman centric.
Just to head this off, I'm a dad.