See the Future of Global Depopulation – a Giant Empty School

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A youtuber shows a day in life of a Japanese Elementary School with only 8 students and 11 teachers.

The school has about 20 rooms and had over 400 students in previous generations but is now virtually empty.

There are about 11 million akiya, or abandoned homes, in rural Japan. Here we see a nearly abandoned school.

The video shows happy students and teachers but you can also feel the sad decline. The school was built 130 years ago for more capacity. The number of teachers should have been 20-30 and the number of students was and should be hundreds. All of the nearby schools are also nearly empty. They talk about a weekly soccer game that is 5 on 5 with first and second graders from each school.

Lack of fertility is an extinction level event over a few hundred years. The number of fertile women nearly halves every 30 years. In 300 years the number of fertile women would be 1000 times less.

Global population collapse takes women and children first and Japan is leading the way. China, South Korea and many other countries are following. 30% of the people live in countries with falling population and over 80% live in below replacement including India.

Japan is leading the way in a crisis of population collapse. Japan had peak woman about 53 years ago in 1970. This was also about the time they had peak children.

During Japan’s first postwar baby boom (1947–49), there were 2.5 million births a year. In the second baby boom (1971–74), there were 2 million annual births. Japan had 758000 babies in 2023.

Japan Could Be a Vulnerable Population by 2050

Japan’s population peaked in 2008. By the time Japan’s overall population peaked, the number of fertile women had fallen in half. The total fertility in 1974. The number of fertile women is dropping and the number of babies each is having is dropping. Japan is now at less than one-third of its peak baby years.

Humanity is on the Path to Being Endangered

A species is classified as endangered when its population has declined at least 70 percent and the cause of the decline is known. A species is also classified as endangered when its population has declined at least 50 percent and the cause of the decline is not known. I would argue that we do NOT have a clear understanding of the decline. Yes, we know women are choosing not to have children, but this problem has spread to every moderately industrialized nation and is hitting all nations Urbanization is also anti-baby and anti-family.

Japan is going from 122 million people today to about 100 million people in 2050-2056. By 2050, its population could fall below 100 million, of whom 38.8% will be 65 or older. IF there was magic policy to double Japan’s birthrates then instead of a working age population of about 58 million in 2050, Japan could have 72 million working age people and a population of about 120 million.

Population Collapse Will Be Worse than the Black Death

A global fertility collapse could be worse than the Black Death. The collapse could take 50–60 years instead of 7, and that countries with a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.0–1.1 would lose 30–40% of their population. This would be worse than the 30–50% population loss in the hardest-hit European countries during the Black Death.

117 thoughts on “See the Future of Global Depopulation – a Giant Empty School”

    • Some people don’t understand that economies are built on people. Sure you can enhance productivity and sure education and skills and work ethic matter quite a bit but in the end you still need people.

      If you cut your population in half every generation then you need a 2x productivity increase every generation just to keep your standard of living.

  2. Historically, prior to modern medicine, infant and child mortality rates were extremely high in most parts of the world. Parents would have more children as an unconscious hedge against some not surviving to adulthood. The development and rollout of effective vaccination programs against diseases like smallpox, polio, measles, etc. led to dramatic reductions in child mortality globally through the 20th century. Demographers have observed an inversely correlated relationship between declines in child mortality and declines in fertility rates within populations over time – as parents felt increased confidence their children would survive. This phenomenon of falling fertility rates following improved child survival is known as the “demographic transition” and has been widely observed across societies as they develop economically and medically. Evolutionary biologists propose mechanisms like the “reproductive strategy” hypothesis which suggests humans may have innate psychological drivers to have more offspring when child survival chances are lower as an evolutionary adaptation. Anthropological accounts detail cultural norms and expectations in high mortality societies around sustaining larger family sizes as insurance against child deaths. The removal of the historic stress of high child mortality has altered psychological/biological reproductive drives has basis in the demographic transition model. This has absolutely nothing to do with liberal politics you hyper-partisan dolts! There is something in human beings D.N.A. that requires us to see piles of dead babies before we want to make extra babies.

    • Parents would have a lot of kids because they were mostly agrarian. You need a lot of kids to work farms.
      ” and has been widely observed across societies as they develop economically and medica”
      You mean as they urbanize. There is a direct, inverse relationship between national urbanization rates and TFR. Look it up, by each nation, if you want. For each 10% gain in urbanization, you will see about a 1 point drop in TFR, starting at about 10.

      “There is something in human beings D.N.A. that requires us to see piles of dead babies before we want to make extra babies.”
      That is an absurdly stupid assumption.

      • My dead babies joke is based on facts. Your idea that people have large families because they need help on the farm is not. And no, I don’t mean urbanization. I would like to learn more about this chart/graph of urbanization you are referring to. Who produced it? Can you post a link? Of course correlation does not mean causation, so your “rule of thumb” may not be accurate, but I am always interested in new facts. Lastly, did anybody notice that Niall Ferguson published an op-ed in Bloomberg today (3/9/2024) tilted “Global Population Crash Isn’t Sci-Fi Anymore”. I think he might be one of your readers Brian.

        • Except for my grandfather who was with 11 at home on the farm which was also driven by religion, on the other hand my urban grandfather who was just with 2 in the same age… above explenation is def. right in some area’s circumstances!

          • Here is my quote below for tfr and urbanization rates
            “By way of example:
            SK urbanization/TFR: 82%/0.8
            Angola: 68/5.3
            Brazil: 87/1.6
            Mexico: 81/1.9
            Iran: 76/1.7
            Egypt: 43/3
            Saudi: 85/2.4
            Congo: 46/6
            Nigeria: 53/5”
            Random

        • “Your idea that people have large families because they need help on the farm is not.”
          Is not what?
          “I would like to learn more about this chart/graph of urbanization you are referring to.”
          There is no chart. It is a pattern I noticed. I posted elsewhere here some random nations by tfr/urbanization rate and it is fairly consistent.

      • I looked at your urbanization argument a bit more. I found the correlation you site between urbanization and birth rates only holds for a post 19th century world. The reasons your conclusions about urbanization are wrong are basically because people have lived in cities for 10,000 years. Its not until we reach the 19th century that there is a difference in family size between city folk and country farmer types. According to the widely cited studies of E.A. Wrigley, Prior to 1800, “the gap between urban and rural fertility was not large.” In 16th-18th century England, crude birth rates in towns were only marginally lower (around 5-10%) than in rural parishes. Medieval European woman pushed out 5-7 kids each. In 1768, John Ingen-Housz inoculated over 700 people with smallpox material in England, demonstrating its potential. In 1774, Benjamin Waterhouse introduced variolation to America after observing it in England. The breakthrough came in 1796 when Edward Jenner developed and popularized vaccination using cowpox material, which was much safer than variolation. Jenner’s observation of milkmaids who were immune to smallpox after contracting cowpox led to his development of the vaccine. I believe it is this time in human history that parents in America and parts of Europe first started to have the confidence their brood would likely live. This correlates with the beginning of the decline in TFR in America and parts of Europe. Thus I defend the logic of my dead baby joke. There is something in human beings D.N.A. that requires us to see piles of dead babies before we want to make extra babies.

        • Successful societies grow when people feel the future will be better. Right now, it would appear most civilizations have failed. Whether the U.S., Korea, Japan, and especially Western Europe, people are cynical that the future will be better. Hence the dearth of births.

          • The falling way below replacement also applies to Thailand, India, Bangladesh. The analysis needs to go beyond the developed countries to all the places with lower income, lower costs and higher percentage GDP growth rates.

        • For someone who believes correlation does not imply causation, you’re making a huge leap from “urbanization does not harm birth rates” to “we are biologically programmed to have less kids when we believe they’ll survive”. You have not offered a shred of evidence to that claim. Quote a study or a research paper, this is a theory that can be easily proven or disproven in a large study.

          • Here are some papers and theory’s for you to debunk;
            1. “The Effects of Mortality on Fertility: Population Dynamics After a Natural Disaster.” by Jenna Nobles, Elizabeth Frankenberg, and Duncan Thomas.
            Its about the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Here’s a quote for you. “We observe a sustained fertility increase at the aggregate level following the tsunami, which was driven by two behavioral responses to mortality exposure. First, mothers who lost one or more children in the disaster were significantly more likely to bear additional children after the tsunami. This response explains about 13 % of the aggregate increase in fertility. Second, women without children before the tsunami initiated family-building earlier in communities where tsunami-related mortality rates were higher” (My dead babies joke quantified). Does this satisfy your large study ideas?
            2. “From Death to Birth Mortality Decline and Reproductive Change” National Research Council (US) Committee on Population; Editors: Mark R. Montgomery and Barney Cohen. They really get into the weeds trying to quantify infant and child mortality effects on TFR. Its long.
            3. Demographic Transition Theory by Frank Notestein. Here’s a link to a good video explaining part of it. It gives several ancillary reasons to vaccination and medical advancements for reductions in birthrate. I still weight vaccination, beginning in the early 1800s as the primary driver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cre5wwEKiDQ
            There’s a lot more out there.

        • “I found the correlation you site between urbanization and birth rates only holds for a post 19th century world.”
          ….you mean applicable to today.
          No one is talking about 500 years ago when MOST people lived on farms or were hunter gatherers

          • I am talking about today. “Your idea that people have large families because they need help on the farm is not.” -backed up by the facts. Medieval European parish records show there was the same number of kids per household for families living in the city as there were for families living on the farm. City living (Urbanization) had never caused a lower number of children per household until the early 1800’s when vaccination first becomes popular. The reduced stress of reduced child mortality changes TFR and behavior. It wasn’t the only factor, but I have listed papers and sources in other replies to clearly show it was and still is, a really big F’n deal.

    • The fertility rate in the United States has been falling steadily since 1800, with the Baby Boom being literally the only counter bounce to that steady decline.

      Check out other countries – it isn’t much different.
      This has nothing to do with vaccines.

      • I believe it does have something to do with vaccines. Medieval woman pushed out 5-7 kids each. In 1768, John Ingen-Housz inoculated over 700 people with smallpox material in England, demonstrating its potential. In 1774, Benjamin Waterhouse introduced variolation to America after observing it in England. The breakthrough came in 1796 when Edward Jenner developed and popularized vaccination using cowpox material, which was much safer than variolation. Jenner’s observation of milkmaids who were immune to smallpox after contracting cowpox led to his development of the vaccine. I believe it is this time in human history that parents in America and parts of Europe first started to have the confidence their brood would likely live. This correlates with the beginning of the decline in TFR in America and parts of Europe. I’m not saying it’s the only reason, but it’s a really big F’n deal.

        • No mention whatsoever of contraception & abortion? For the first time in human history women have the option of being childless. That’s a WAY bigger factor than innoculation

          • In ancient Greece (c. 400 BCE), abortion was accepted and techniques using herbs, forceps and pressure were recorded by philosophers like Aristotle and Plato. In ancient Rome, abortion was relatively widespread, with both herbal abortifacients and surgical techniques used. Easy access to abortion didn’t lower TFR in ancient days so I don’t think its very relevant now. Modern birth control can’t account for the drop in TFR starting in 1800’s America and Europe. I believe the results and hope created by vaccination can account for that.

    • That is one view. You formulate it well. “There is something in human being’s DNA”, is also akin to the hand waving typical of evolutionary biology, population studies, etc.

      Here is a different take: Humans are seduced by opulence and comfort. When you advertise opulence (you need x & y to be happy, to rank reasonably on the social ladder) and downplay reproductive duty until an age where fertility is 1/2 (30yrs) (+ abortion is actively promoted), people are seduced to work for opulence instead of creating children out of duty.

      It is the Devil’s classic play to have humanity act against its own interest: seduction.

  3. All of this discussion is virtually a non-issue. There is no population decline problem. Now and increasingly in the future, science and technology will be vastly more important than sheer numbers of people. This world can easily do without all those masses of people, down to 10%, or maybe even 5%. All services can and will still be provided.

    • “All of this discussion is virtually a non-issue. There is no population decline problem”
      What?
      Tell that to east Asian nations. They’re already feeling.
      Hell- the US is as it gets older. Those staffing shortages we have been having? That’s because last year was the average age of retirement of the baby boomers and they are the largest demographic, by age, by far.
      So saying this is a non-issue is absolutely BAFFLING
      “This world can easily do without all those masses of people, down to 10%, or maybe even 5%. All services can and will still be provided.”
      This is absolutely tone-deaf. This isn’t about population size but MAKE UP. You are going to have a much older population being supported by an increasingly smaller young population.
      THAT is what demographic collapse is about.

  4. This seems to me more like a problem of distribution of people, not quantity of people. The world population as a whole is still growing by a little less than 1% (about a third of its peak in 1970ish). There are currently around 8.1 billion people on the planet. It look like it might peak around 9 or 10 billion by mid century. Short of multiple rapid decimation events (a really nasty pandemic or world war), I don’t see how we get to halving the population in the foreseeable future.

    So it’s not a lack of people, it’s a lack in some places (like rural Japan). Why can’t this problem be solved by immigration — allowing people to move from population dense areas to population sparse areas? That’s pretty much how we populated the United States.

    Probably not a popular opinion in the current political climate, so start throwing stones…

  5. I am wondering if the fertility rate decline could be a “rat utopia” like phenomenon. Urbanization which puts a lot of people into a relatively confined space is part of it. The other is that we are actually doing too well, it seems. If you read up on the experiments done on mice and rats, you can see a lot of parallels to what is happening with humans currently.
    The big question is whether the trend will reverse again once population density has dropped below a certain level. Currently it does not seem like it. It worries me a lot.

  6. NOTE: Population decline is NOT happening among the ultra-religious. Those who are sticking to traditional family lifestyles are NOT decreasing in population. Amish, Mormon, Orthodox Jews, etc. these populations are thriving.
    The liberal progressive sexually-liberated modern feminist are dying out, they are not having kids. Congratulations! you got rid of teenage pregnancies and doomed your own culture.
    Human females are SUPPOSE have children when they are teenagers. It is the most healthy time for the mother and the children.
    It is sad that a married teenage mother is seen as a failed woman by modern society.
    You may disagree with me, but who cares, you and your beliefs are dying out.

    • “The liberal progressive sexually-liberated modern feminist are dying out, they are not having kids.”

      Children of conservatives may and are becoming liberals. Political views aren’t genetic. It’s more or less random process if your kid will become pink-green haired lib destroying paitings or church going conservative.

      You may “program” your young children for the first 12 years of their life to become “good traditional type” but he/she only needs bump into few YT vids, watch some movie or meet some liberal teenagers in school/ via friends and they may like those ideas and quickly become such person.

    • Politics in Japan in the post-war period has largely been dominated by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has been in power almost continuously since its foundation in 1955. By every western metric LDP is a very conservative party and Japan is considered one of the most conservative countries both from the social, culrural and religious standpoint. Sweden on the other side is quite progressive and us one of the few European nations with a positive demographics growth. For sure ultra religious groups are more demographically active than secular ones, but they tend to be small minorities with very limited economic output (if not with a completely negative economic output that requires constant subsides from the secular part if the society) that are uncapable of sustaining a full scale civiluzation.

        • Most European countries are declining, but Sweden still has positive demographic growth. It is growing by 0.5% per year. The original post discussed populations shrinking.

          • That’s due to Moslem immigration. The indigenous (i.e., ethnic) Swedish birth rate is below replacement level and falling. The Sweden of 2050 and 2100 will be a very different place with a very different culture.

          • Only due to massive and unsustainable immigration.
            The immigrants don’t work much and don’t contribute. The infrastructure is not built out to cope with the inflow so there is a huge maintenance debt for just about everything.

            • In general migrants are net contributors. There is not a significant portion of elderly immigrants and they do not have massive stashes of wealth so they work and contribute to the economy.

      • When a society moves it’s population from rural to tiny cramped apartments in dense cities kids just don’t FIT, there is no room for them in tiny apartments and no place for them to play. Adults are not stupid. The suburbs in the US helped slow the trend but Japan and especially Chine is textbook, NO ROOM. Urban planners are the pox on people, families cannot be put in handy boxes to be stacked away until needed.

  7. This is how the liberals dream dies. Quite literally.

    The future belongs to those who show up, and let me tell you: it won’t be the people you cherish with the culture you like.

    Life isn’t patient nor considerate with the fools.

    • This is what I told a colleague of mine regarding the influx of leftists into Texas- most dont have kids and so their idealogy meets a biological dead end

      • FWIW lots of R’s moving to Texas too. And they have kids. This is why D’s have a problem. TX, FL, NC, ID are growing. Idaho voter registration shows that 75% of Californians moving to Idaho are R, 10% D.

        The great sorting was accelerated by foolish Covid policies.

  8. The only real problem here is cash, as much as i hate to say it as a rich man, its cash. Im wealthy, my wife can stay at home and i can afford kids, i see friends struggling. Also we do not have personal beliefs like islam what makes us want to have children because koran says so. Wetsernlings are too cash dependant and too much fought free.

  9. Here is a comment by S.M. Stirling on the issue
    “in South Korea, there seems to have been a massive disconnect between men and women in the younger generations.

    The much lower TFR’s in East Asia vs. say, Europe, may be due to ‘cultural lag’.

    That is, East Asia has ‘modernized’ (effectively, Westernized) in some respects as it industrialized. Both sexes are now highly educated, for example.

    But male expectations of what women will do in the context of marriage has changed much less. Not surprising, when you think how recently these were peasant countries where traditional customs were overwhelmingly dominant.

    This creates a clash between male and female expectations, with men thinking that their prospective mates will act like their mothers and grandmothers. And women being massively unwilling to do that.

    It’s particularly severe in South Korea, but there are strong resemblances between the situation there and in Japan and China. Including Taiwan, where the TFR is now around 0.87 — second-lowest in the world, though China’s is nearly as low and comparing -urban- populations is as low or lower.

    In the West the position of women was always better than it was in the “Confucian world”, not least for reasons of religion; and we modernized over many more generations, which gave people an opportunity to adapt gradually.”

    • But the Western world demographic decline is just spread over more decades.
      America has been losing TFR since 1800.
      And last I checked, America wasn’t Confucian.

      • Stirling’s point isn’t that the issue doesn’t exist in the West, just that the the lack of change in male attitudes in East Asia makes the problem worse there.

    • For men we want a woman to become a housewife and mother to our children. Do the cleaning and cooking and so forth. If we can’t find a woman to do that its an easy decision – we just don’t have children.

      • and women want a man who thinks being a father includes changing diapers and reading bedtime stories.

  10. Yet we still have people screaming that we can’t have anti-aging life extension because of overpopulation. Even Elon Musk, who goes on and on about the coming depopulation is still hostile towards anti-aging life extension.

    • Musk isn’t negative on anti-ageing tech because it will cause over population. He’s negative on it because he thinks people get too set in there ways, and that people need to die & be replaced by people with new ideas. But we’ll see, I’m betting that as he gets older, he will slowly move away form that stance.
      I’m 40, and love new technology, and coming up with new ideas on how to do something or build something.
      I am not worried at all about our species, we will cure ageing, of course some wont want it (because of religious or natural reasons), which is fine.
      We’re on the verge on bringing back the mammoth, so if we have the ability to bring back extinct species, we aren’t going anywhere.

      • I think that’s actually a symptom of aging, reduced neural plasticity, and if we cure aging, we’ll cure that, too.

        And, in fact, we do have ways to enhance neural plasticity, with about the side effects you’d expect: You start losing unused memories and skills, just like children do.

        • The is the reason why Musk’s opposition to anti-aging is nothing more than an ideological polemic.

  11. Brian, your responses to all of these posters appear to be quite fervent and personal. Might it be you’re allowing your personal political (and connected financial beliefs) and religious beliefs to override a little common sense. Less humans is a good thing for limiting damage.

  12. I don’t see this population collapse coming given that anti-aging and life-extension technologies are being developed. The most likely scenario is that while birth rates will decline the people who are born and those already existing will just extend their lives indefinitely. Sure, “suicide” or some other fantastical concepts such as storing yourself until a future event happens is within the realm of possibilities and that may cause some of the population to taper, but I’d contend that if you can survive the first 500 years then you have the composition to survive until the heat-death of the universe. Humanity, in that case, will just continue to exist on.

    • Okay. Super extended lifespan pills hit the market. A day’s medication costs the same as a fancy caffeinated beverage at Starbucks. I’m buying it for me and the wife, for all 4 kids and their spouses, for the eight grandkids (so far) and eventually their spouses as well and after that we will see. But most of the world can’t afford a fancy Starbucks drink every day for just themselves, let alone for their spouse or other relatives. Then there are all those people who will say, “Nah, I’ll wait to start it when I have more money,” or “I’m I’ll wait until I’m more settled down.” And then how many people say they are going to work out every day versus how many stay with it, year after year? Heck, we still got folks that smoke and chew tobacco and eat head cheese. And that’s not even mentioning all those folks who have some idea of “growing old gracefully.” As if there were anything graceful about bedpans, colon cancer, or Alzheimer’s.

      I also suspect a lot of human minds, like a computer running Windows 95, just won’t work indefinitely. A few people keep on exploring and creating until the day they die, while too many others decide to make it their purpose in life to keep those dratted kids off of their grass. Read “The Ethics of Madness” by Larry Niven for a taste of what some of them might get like.

      I think indefinite length lifespans will profoundly change the human race and the nature of our existence, and for the better. But I don’t think it will significantly affect population numbers except, possibly, in just a few places that can well afford it and will even benefit from it.

  13. when one PARENT working 40 hr,5 days a week,can support a family of 4,with a quality of

    life centered on family, all problems for society will cease 🙂 😉

  14. I don’t know how popular or unpopular this opinion is, but: countries who are serious about declines within their own spheres should really start taking very meaningful swings at ectogenesis if they have the resources to do so.

    • Absolutely right! As a gay man, My husband and I would have liked to have children but we didnt want the expense of surrogacy and to deal with all that. If this type of technology were available I think for sure we would have at least two kids maybe three tops. I do think this technology would have interesting effects though since the need for women really goes away at that point doesnt it?

      • Nah, female humans will be around as long as human males are around. And there will still be people who want to have daughters. But I definitely agree that such technology would build new roads to parenthood for everyone. ^_^

  15. Humanity has become too smart for its own good.
    People want to do more interesting things with their lives than just be Darwinian cannon fodder.

  17. EVerything we imagine to be critical socio-political problems is likely to change post singularity – likely this decade, ubiquitous robot labour under AI control, AI tutoring and childcare, few jobs for humans.. Or potentially extinction due to AI.

    It’s not worth worrying about demographic trends in the face of that – there will be solutions or it won’t matter compared to bigger existential issues.

  18. Little risk of extinction from infertility as the bulk of repoductive age humanity will be in subsaharian Africa in 50 years

  20. Say Japan’s population fell from 124 million today to 12 million 200-300 years from now. With the fertility rate gradually rising up along the way until the fertility rate was at 2.10 when Japan got down to 12 million.

    So then Japan would be stable at 12 million for the sake of argument. Well 12 million is probably about what Japan had for many centuries and they were fine on their islands. Japanese culture was strong and 12 million people is still a lot of people.

    But right now there is no reason to think the fertility rate ever will come up. The fertility rate is still falling in Japan. Even as they are at about 1.25 fertility rate. The falling fertility rate is everywhere. Who knows the fertility rate might trend upwards one day, but right now it is still trending down.

  21. Come on with the depopulation crisis! When I was in primary school, I learned that world population was about 3 billion. These days we’re at 7 or 8. Doubling the population in half a century doesn’t seem healthy to me either.
    We’re just having some wild population swings during a few centuries, until humanity learns to live with high technology. That’s all.

  22. It’s still better for India to have a declining population than have an increasing population, there are just not enough jobs and land

  23. People work harder for less. Women are in the workforce to a much larger extent than they used to be and hours are long. People are too engaged with the television/internet/games and not with each other.

    In the past a single earner could save money (real value, not a depreciating fiat currency) for the whole family and that gives hope for investment in a future.

    The real fundamental issue here is hope. And whether real or imagined, there is little hope for a future for most people.

    Without that hope they simply won’t have children.

  24. What seams to be the problem? Order paid, order delivered. There is no axiom stipulating a permanently rising population: there are options, choices, and consequences of making those choices. This is one of them.

    The following choices were made at all levels:
    1. destruction of traditional family, which was the condition for continuing existence of society over millenia;
    2. social programming of women during their formative years for certain behaviours, and rewarding of those behaviours, until they became social norms over three generations;
    3. said behaviours moved the age of first birth past the age window genetically provisioned for birth (abundant published research I will not go into here);
    4. creating economic conditions that forced women into work for the benefit of economy (about double the workforce); same economic conditions forced most men into de facto in poverty till their 40s, unable to providing for a family due to debt, taxation and an abundance of mechanisms of extraction of their economic activity output;
    5. a few simple but effective methods for distraction from the topic subject until it is too late.

    As a result, in case of Japan, the subject of children pops up when a Japanese woman is about 40, which from the point of view of relevant genetics and molecular biology a ludicrous nonsense. Not that it is women’s choice, they actually have very little or no choice in this matter. Neither do Japanese men, who are deliberately kept in poverty (working poor, salariman) till they are past 40, and especially at 50+.

    There have been beneficiaries of all the things listed above, and the order is being paid for now. The order will be paid in full, there is no way around it – it happened the moment those choices were made, but delivery of consequences is distributed over time. History is full of stories of failed societies that did really well before they collapsed. It does not happen only to other people, in case there was such hope.

  25. I understand that huge challenges are associated with depopulation, including economic recession and a lack of workers, especially to support the large percentage of seniors, but it almost sounds like NextBigFuture forgot how much worse exponential growth would be and that humanity is already overpopulated. Depopulation will probably be the biggest factor in fixing our biggest problems like the climate crisis, world hunger, deforestation, pollution, the energy crisis etc.

    Since the population is so large, humanity will NOT be endangered, as in at risk of extinction, even after the population shrinks by 90% or more. The typical definition should not apply here, since humanity is limited by the entire planet’s resources, which is usually not the case for other endangered species.
    The comparison of the shrinkage of the population to the one associated with the black plague is ridiculous; the number of deaths by an illness and by old age are simply not the same thing, and the number of children that are not born as compared to some exponential population growth curve should not count as “deaths” either.

    I believe that once the population has gone down, and the problems associated with overpopulation are alleviated, people even in industrialized countries will happily have more children, perhaps under the aid of future government policies, which could lead to some future oscillation of the global population, since the growth must stop again before the point of overpopulation. But I believe that those policies would be too soon if introduced now, since humanity is still overpopulated, and the problems associated with overpopulation still outweigh the ones associated with depopulation.

    • Where is the world hunger and starvation? Food production is increasing by about 2% every year. If there is $120000 debt per person this will increase in Japan to 300000 per working age person in 2050. We can add the energy. There is and will be no energy crisis. Cars and trucks are electrifying. Climate is and will be fine.

      • Personally, I believe that evolutionary pressures stemming from natural selection from cultural, or genetic factors would result in the birth rate returning to replacement over the next several hundred years.

        Cultures, environment elements or genes that are associated with higher fertility rates would incrementally become increasingly dominate over each generation. Even if the correlation is extremely weak, it would nonetheless become predominate when large time periods are accounted for.

        • Rest assured it is nigh 100% cultural-political.

          As for any genetic angle rest assured that any genetic disposition to not procreate is filtering itself out. Nature has a way of working this stuff out.

      • I’m pretty sure there is hunger and starvation in Gaza. There are obviously too many people there to share that land. Think of Ethiopia, think of the 44 million Americans who don’t have enough to eat. Climate is fine? Wow. I think this indicative of a whole range of problems that will go away with fewer people around as mentioned above. Why in the world do we need more people? I wish for the day when “more is better” is gone and innovation in sustainability and quality of life rule.

        • Extrapolating from… Gaza… to all of Earth is literally the cherry on top of the garbage ice cream sundae of shoddy reasoning.

          The whole world provides Gaza with free food. Agriculture is a long solved problem. We make and consume so much food that obesity is the problem. Don’t conflate agriculture with the difficulties of distributing food to people who are administered by a terror state.

          • Misread. I’m not talking about argriculture. I am talking about the difficulties of distributing food (read -‘too many people’). This is not a science/engineering problem. it is an illogical people problem. Ignoring starvation is your people problem and you are wrong. I can say that since you were condescending. If there are fewer people fighting for resources things might be a little easier. I’m really taking about priorioties here.

      • Bold words about the climate that are not supported by climate science. Could you stick with the actual research? If Trump is elected, it will be dig, baby, dig.

      • I really don’t like crowds that much. My usual vacation planning is something along the lines of: “What is the most remote place I can get to, spend some time, and still get back to work in the allotted time?”

        Planet has more than doubled in pop since I was born and I liked being able to go to the North Shore in Oahu and make campfires on the beach when I was a kid. Now it’s wall-to-wall high rises.

    • Where is the overpopulation problem in Japan ? They are seeing the decline. Houses are being given away. Where is the turnaround and population rebound?

      • Look at the people in the video. Where is there pressure from starvation of climate or anything? There is loads of room but only six families had any kids. The teachers are doing the work but do you think the adult teachers or nurses had their own children?

        If you see the other day in the life in Japan it is a lot of single and childless adults.

      • Japan has roughly the land area of California.
        Japan’s population is 125 million. California’s population is 39 million.
        Japan has the 4th largest economy in the world. If California were an independent country, it would have the 5th largest economy in the world. Japan’s population decline need not impact it’s economic strength.

        • But, where, if ever, does this modern population decline stop, and how prosperous will be an economy composed almost entirely of pensioners, with no future generation to care about?

          • You are trying to explain the second derivative to somebody who barely grasps the meaning of the first derivative.

      • The population decline might reverse, if we become what we once all were: colectivist fundamentalists. That will hurt a lot, and will take time. I don”t envy our children.

      • Japan imports almost every resource it needs: food, oil, virtually all minerals, uranium. That means less for others. Fishing is depleting the ocean of stocks to such an extent that people are eating what used to be bait fish and jellyfish are booming to clog the (overcrowded) beaches because there are no fish left to eat them.
        Livestock in America and the grains to feed them take the majority of arable land, while people are efficiently squeezed into urban areas – which is good, but also necessary.
        Pollution is choking everything from our arteries (see the links to microplastic clogging above) to most of Appalachia, the West – which is given over to mining – and the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, our aquifers are draining at an alarming and accelerating rate. Subsidence from that and even from the weight of heavy urban buildings is reaching sea levels at least as fast as sea levels are rising to reach land.
        Yes, there are solutions to all of these problems and much more but they are not being rolled out fast enough, the level of resistance is rising – see what happens when people are told to eat less meat in Europe, soon in America.
        We need fewer people to survive long-term on the planet; 100b is ridiculous. Long-term poverty reduction & food production are reversing and globalization is ending, causing inefficiency and shortages that will make the pandemic shortages look like a dress rehearsal.
        Meanwhile, the places where population is increasing are almost exactly those where there are few human rights, especially for women: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/countries-abortion-legal-illegal-laws-rcna27505
        See the map in the above link.
        Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it, and you won’t like that kind of world. High fertility countries or populations are the least desirable places to live.
        AI, much better use of the human resources we have – most people are neutral to a drain on society, at best – are the ways to go. We have more than enough people to spur progress. Less rent-seeking and more innovation are key but our systems don’t reward the right things.

    • Climate pollution and emissions is not a population problem. They are a fossil fuel and technology problem. Two adults choosing to have no kids but two SUVs. Is that better for the environment? Taylor Swift has no kids but flies private jet to party and vacation around the world.

      If we double or quadruple energy usage for bitcoin mining million dollar bitcoin or for 100000 AI data centers then how does this involve solving it with fewer kids?

      • Climate pollution and emissions are more than a technological problem. President Carter wanted to promote the transition to green energy but was stopped by oil lobbyists. Trump wants to ignore the climate crisis completely while increasing drilling. A huge public investment in charging stations needs to be made across the nation, which Biden is supporting.

  26. „Yes, we know women are choosing not to have children” – 7.36 „not having enough government support for affordable child care, for parental leave and childbirth encouragement”. Maybe this has something to do with the rapid decline.

    • Our parents and grandparents had less money and no government support. They still had more kids. This is a global phenomenon. Rich countries and poor countries.

      The reasons. Excuses and economics do not apply to many of the countries but the decline is everywhere. Africa is still above replacement but fertility is dropping and will be below replacement in 20-40 years.

      • Brian, the problem with population decline is people having a lot subjectively more attractive things to do, than having family and children. So, things will continue to be fine in some isolationist groups, and might improve elsewhere if some real global catastrophe and cultural revolution occurs. Then, a lot of cultural advancements will have to go.

  27. Peter Zeihanb says children are an expensive headache.

    Here in Thailand , a good education cost 10000 usd pr year pr kid, and gdp pr capita is 7000, so most people can only afford one kid.

    The government schools are free , but underfunded with 40-50 kids pr class

      • Zeihan is a mixed bag. The guy you are responding to is misinterpreting what Zeihan said-
        Kids in the country are an asset because they work farms.
        When you urbanize, they become an expensive liability.
        One thing I encourage you to look up is the TFR of each nation to urbanization rate. I noticed that for each 10% increase in urbanization of a nation, you will see ABOUT a 1 point drop in TFR, starting at 10. By way of example:
        SK urbanization/TFR: 82%/0.8
        Angola: 68/5.3
        Brazil: 87/1.6
        Mexico: 81/1.9
        Iran: 76/1.7
        Egypt: 43/3
        Saudi: 85/2.4
        Congo: 46/6
        Nigeria: 53/5

        • Concur. Zeihan is a mixed bag. He at least gets a dialog started on some things, and occasionally raises some good points on economics and politics, or at least provides a different sort of angle for looking at them, but he is not omniscient. Where he falls down especially is on science and technology, and since the impact of these changes everything, and in ways the world has never seen before, it means we are limited to using his stuff only as considerations in developing our own more holistic views of the world and its future.

    • The current fertility rate for Thailand in 2024 is 1.452 births per woman, a 0.62% decline from 2023. The fertility rate for Thailand in 2023 was 1.461 births per woman, a 1.02% decline from 2022. The fertility rate for Thailand in 2022 was 1.476 births per woman, a 1.01% decline from 2021.

      Thailand is at about 20% seniors and is heading to halving population within 60 years.

        • Humans have two needs. Entertainment and human interaction. Due to technological advancement, we can achieve both of these from the comfort of our own home. We can be entertained independently at home without the need of others. We can get human interaction virtually without needing to meet people in person. Because of the lack of human interaction in person, people are not forming romantic relationships and having kids. This will lead to human extinction in 300 years.

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