Over 70% of the World’s population live in countries that are below replacement fertility levels and this includes poor countries like India and Pakistan. 30% of the World’s population is in countries that have declining populations and this includes China, Japan, South Korea, Italy and Spain.
Replacement fertility is 2.07 which means a women will have 2.07 children on average over her lifetime. This is simply that the average women in a population must have an average of one daughter who also has children in order to have a stable population. Lifespan below immortality mean that a population might stay closer to stable for longer with long lifespans but eventually not replacing mothers with daughters causes a collapse and if not reversed it will lead to extinction.
How severe are these issues? Japan’s population peaked in 2008 at over 128 million and is now about 122 million. Japan is on track to about 100 million people in 2050. Japan’s economy peaked in 1995 at $5.5 trillion and is now $4.4 trillion. In the same time the US economy tripled. This is because of the decline in the working age population and the average age increasing from 38 to 48 in Japan. Japan’s average age will increase to 55 by 2050.
China’s population pyramid is terrible because of decades of the one child policy. China had a total fertility rate of 1.09 in 2022. China’s population is headed from over 1.4 billion today to less than 1.1 billion in 2050 and the average age will go from 38 today to 50 by 2050.
The World economy lost $5-10 trillion from 1995 to 2023 from Japan’s demographic collapse. The World economy will lose $30 trillion from 2023 to 2050 from the population aging and collapse in major countries.
It gets tougher and tougher and more and more costly to try to reverse the population avalanche.
How much would it cost now to use all financial means and policy to get to back replacement levels in 2024 and onwards in Japan and China and the other countries?
In 2020, the total fertility rate in the USA 1.71 children per woman. Getting to replacement of 2.07, we would need a 21% increase in birth rates. To accomplish this, the would need the present value of child benefits would need to increase by somewhere between 52% and 400% of household income. For the median woman, this would mean providing a child benefit for the first 18 years of a child’s life worth approximately $5,300 per year in addition to currently-provided benefits, with the range running from $2,800 more per year to $23,000 more per year. This would be $50k to 400k per extra child. In the USA, this would be to increase births from 3.6 million to 4.35 million. This would be 750,000 more babies per year. This would be constantly paying $4 billion per year and increasing to $72 billion per year by 2042 and then $150-200 billion per year in 2060. However, the actual amount might need to be four times more if women and families need more money to be willing to have babies.
In 2022, the total fertility rate in China is 1.09 children per woman. Getting to replacement of 2.07, we would need a 95% increase in birth rates. Instead of 9.5 million there would need to be 18.5 million. China’s household income is about 20% of the USA. 9 million more babies per year at $1,100 per year for 18 years of benefits. This would be $10 billion per year and increasing by $10 billion per year. This would be $180 billion per year by 2042 and $400 billion per year in 2060. The actual amount might need to be four times more if women and families need more money to be willing to have babies.
Japan’s total fertility rate, the number of children a woman has in her lifetime, likely fell to about 1.2 in 2022, the lowest in 17 years. Getting to replacement of 2.07, we would need a 73% increase in birth rates. Instead of 800,000 babies per year there would need to be 1.38 million. Japan’s household income is about 50% of the USA. 580,000 more babies per year at $3,000 per year for every year of 18 years of benefits. This would be $1.75 billion per year and increasing by 1.75 billion per year each year. This would be $31 billion per year by 2042 and $80 billion per year in 2060. The actual amount might need to be four times more if women and families need more money to be willing to have babies.
Japan paying $200-300 billion from now to 2050 would be totally worth it for the economy to stabilize by around 2040. Instead of halving by 2050, the economy might only be 30% less. It would be a 5X to 10X return every year from GDP that was saved.
China would need to pay $500 billion to $1 trillion would be totally worth it for the economy to stabilize the working age population by around 2040. Instead of halving by 2050, the economy might only be 30% less. It would be a 5X to 10X return every year from GDP that was saved.
The traditional pro-baby policies used in Sweden would likely not be enough. Free egg freezing for all women and free invitro fertilization and support and subsidies for surrogate births will likely be needed.
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.
Population collapse will tank the global economy and force us back to the 1700s. Short of implementing ubi for kids this is unfixable the patriarchy is dead. Climate change is too far global seas will go up several meters its too late to stop. Our only hope in the US is to import everyone’s dystopian refugees.
The capitalists want the labor they just don’t want any of it to cost them. Women don’t want to work long hours and also take care of a family. To solve this problem means 8hrs or less a day for workers and more time off. It also means more WFH opportunities. Better pay so families can afford children. Everyone complains about the low birth rate but no one wants to change a thing to fix it.
If we want more kids, the country has to be willing and able to pay for it.
Free healthcare, food, clothing, and housing assistance for children (and for free fertility clinic visits, and all medical for pregnant mothers, as a minimum.
Forget the tax incentives, no one has (or does not have) kids because of those.
And free childcare — or credits for it, if you don’t (or can’t) use public childcare centers.
All of it carefully monitored for abuse.
Yes, it’s expensive, but do you want a higher birth rate or not? Decide.
Oh, make it easier for one parent to work from home, if possible.
Collapsing/aging population is probably the one thing that will save the Earth from going beyond 6 deg C increase in temperature.
Fix global warming now before it snuffs out civilization.
Worry about depopulation later.
Population collapse with billions of us. Most young people can’t care for themselves due to poor economic conditions. The article’s concern was financial and the impact on money,just consider the human costs. From the writing I would say the financial system is in need of serious dilution of capital due to massive debt. I think we should have a fixed cost economy where prices are fixed annually. Taxes can only total 25% of gross and taxes include healthcare,education ,and pension. Housing should be less than 25% of the minimum wage after taxes and that includes utilities. Food should be subsidized and farmers guaranteed prices and taken care of. All of society’s professions should be made available through public universities to all and free of charge. Guaranteed minimum income for all that covers all the living expenses. No one should be homeless,sick,or broken. Problem solved
I still dont understand why you are obsessed on this topic so much when there are so many other things to be occupied with. this is a natural cycle that is unfolding. the earth doesnt need more people, people need more people. if you wake up and realize we are part of an ecosystem, there is some natural balancing force that is pushing the population down. as you often report, human labor is becoming redundant. we are in the midst of an evolution to the next stage of being, mec-digital entities that will not require humans. we will become zoo pieces in the next 100 yrs if we dont extinct ourselves first. so why are you so worried about population decrease, it is obviously meant to be happening or it wouldnt.
Given how much you’re into this issue, you really ought to look into doing an IVG start-up for couples who do want kinds but cannot have them.
Maybe it isn’t all that bleak. We have 5 problems, interlinked.
[1] The brain drain problem.
Fewer people ‘of high attainment’ to keep pushing forward our world of technology, industry, commerce and marketing.
[2] The drained-brain problem
Can’t throw more people at the problem. Need people of ever higher attainment, higher specialization, smarter, more flexible, capable. Yah, yah, there will be less-and-less to do as an or’nary bloke or lass. That is the drained-brain problem.
[3] AI will really explode within the near future
Seriously: though AI is not terribly creative at the moment, the progress is stunning. I envision a very near future where Robotics will be capable of designing future replacement robotics. Once that, and the Waldos needed to build it all come about, we really will be at the AI Singularity. AI will then be able to design better AI, and produce more AI’s and Waldos as need dictates.
[4] Energy production rejiggering
Note that The World, dominated by 5 administrative top-dogs (US+Can+MX, China, India, Europe and the Islamic world) emits something like 80% of all carbon gasses, and more than 75% of all actual pollutants. The energy production of the future needs to be rejiggered to be CLEAN. Clean because our world really could use a break, pollution wise. I envision 25× the nuclear as we now have, be it uranium and thorium based. And I envision that in so doing, nuclear answers the ‘but what about the storage problem for green-generated electricity?’
[5] Graceful downsizing — populations, consumerism, stupid-ism and ecological rebalancing.
Admit that we don’t need as many, especially as AI’s come along to do most-everything anyway, and that a much reduced world population may well be the BEST thing that can happen, going forward. A world with only 2 billion people, yet efficient ‘sci fi’ forms of communication, transportation, medical provisioning, food supplies … is to be lauded, not feared.
Anyway, that’s as I see it.
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
The AI comment is spot on.
For example, I just finished a 24-page ChatGPT session on how to create a self-propelled 12′ diameter titanium ball (the innards make it work) on Quora. Quora now has a ChatGPT option, powered by Poe. I also asked 25 human experts. 1 responded with a couple of paragraphs asking for more information. By then I had already provided that, and gotten detailed formula responses from the Poe ChatGPT. I still need humans to check ChatGPT’s work – and even ChatGPT repeatedly advises making prototypes – but I very much doubt any of the “free” expert humans will do anything close to the detailed math and theory of ChatGPT, mostly done in seconds (I, OTOH, have to spend a few minutes referring to my spreadsheet and model for answers, with my puny human brain).
Brian’s obsession with growing more population is out-of-character and retrograde. We also need to do much more with the people we have, as you point out too. It should be like after the Black Death that killed 1/3 of Europe, afterwhich we had much better conditions (pay!) for labor, and the Renaissance.
I don’t think population “collapse” is a bad thing. Anti-ageing work is progressing very well, so people can be young & healthy for perhaps hundreds of years. Work also isn’t a problem, and robots with AI will take on more & more roles in the coming years.
It’s a big nothing burger, Brian should know that.
You know, it’s nice to think anti-aging will save us. But that’s kind of like jumping out of an airplane and hoping you can invent a parachute before you hit the ground; What if it proves to be a much harder problem than you think?
The issue here is that the population collapse isn’t something that’s going to happen half a century from now. It’s going on NOW. Any answer to it has to be something we can deploy today, not in half a century.
Maybe not to the point of totally solving the problem, but at least to cushion it enough that we have the time to crack that nut of yours, actually solve aging. Maybe we should at least put the plane into a shallow dive so we have time to McGyver up a parachute?
And the real problem, remember, isn’t the reduction in absolute numbers of people; That could eventually be a problem, but I agree it’s not a big issue in the near future.
The real problem is the distortion of age demographics! At present, and for some time to come, old people become very unproductive resource sinks. So if you under-produce children, a while down the road you end up with a disproportionate fraction of the population unproductive and consuming a lot of resources. The relative productivity of society declines at the exactly time an ever larger fraction of production gets diverted to just keeping people alive.
And, worse, as fewer people have children, you get societal changes that further discourage reproduction; It become politically harder to spend money making reproduction easier, because reproduction gets to be seen as an expensive hobby, not a vital activity like mining or agriculture.
So it’s actually pretty important to start fixing this NOW. Seriously, it may already be too late, we probably should have treated it as an existential emergency a couple decades ago, if the people making decisions weren’t fixated on a “population explosion” that was already showing signs of stalling.
I’m making it worse I guess, 40 yo with no kids. lol
Anti-ageing is progressing fast, last week I saw a David Sinclair interview with Peter D, he said they will begin human clinic trials in 18-24 months! (already works/tested on primates)
That said, I do believe an “anti-ageing pill” is at least a decade away, maybe even 2.
But humanoid robots with AI are about to come on seen, and will crash into the world economy like a tsunami.
The current amount of homo sapiens put a huge load on all the eco systems on the planet. It doesn’t look like there is anything but empty words when it comes to mitigating this ongoing mass extinction. Less people must be good.
Instead, add 1 billion Tesla bots or similar and it doesn’t matter much that the working population is shrinking. Add longevity and AI and it doesn’t matter much that the average age is much higher.
When the population is down to half or less, there will be a surplus of space and resources per human being and people may find it meaningful and ethical to breed again.
Or just show a lot of p@rn on TV.
The problem is expensive real estate. Households require two incomes to cover the mortgage. Working adults have few or no children.
Fertility treatment can’t fix real estate prices.
Subsidized child care helps, but second and third children still cost too much time. It is too hard to keep a good job and manage a multi-child household.
There is tons of land outside of urban CA and the urban mid-atlantic. Work from home somewhere in a rural area – there are rural areas in the most densely populated states. Real estate problem solved. You’re welcome.
Programming lends itself well to remote work. Starlink if u need it.
Definitely a growing trend.
Some companies are pushing for at least hybrid work.
If fully remote becomes widely accepted and rural broadband gets more support, it could help solve real estate and therefore also solve population decline.
The tradeoff is lots more rural land getting converted into exurbs.
Also, and no one wants to talk about this, a household today is half the time a single parent, usually a woman who earns less than a man would, and a child or two. Homes always need at least 1 bath and 1 kitchen, the most expensive part of the home to build.
It’s simply not possible to provide affordable housing unless single parents make what 2 parents used to make, with one mostly at home taking care of the kid(s) and not having to pay for childcare.
The US will probably just import people from other countries. Preferably countries with good STEM programs.