The recent steep decline in fertility in France has provoked a major reaction. The number of babies born dropped to a level not seen since the end of the Second World War. As recently as 2015 the UN was holding up France as a country likely to be able to sustain its birth rates. It had support for new families and good job protection. The same could be said for Finland. An interview in the Financial Times this week showed the same realization of failure. Their head of population statistics pointed out how generous was their support. How ten years ago the Nordic model had been envied and copied. Unfortunately the optimism was too soon. Since then fertility has fallen from close to 2 to 1.4.

Compared to these examples South Korea has reached a different level of crisis all together. Its birthrate in 2023 fell to 0.72 children per female. In 2022 only 249,000 babies were born. The Government has estimated how many will be needed for the labour market to cope. It is twice this number. They have declared a National Emergency. This is more surprising given that South Korea has been fighting this problem since 2005. It was in that year that the birthrate fell to a level of 1.2 per female. The Government formed a “Presidential Committee on the Ageing Society and Population Policy”. Since then the Presidential Committee has spent $247BN in a losing battle. Will “demographic rearmament” suffer the same fate?

A Crisis Bigger than Climate Change?

A recent New York Times article made this case. Their argument was all about time. The time it took to get climate change even onto the “agenda”. The paper first reported the threat of climate change in 1956. The first scientific presentation to Congress took place a year later. The time it took to mobilize action and start the COP process. The time it will take to get action. Based on that they argue for placing global depopulation on the agenda now. The fertility decline is accelerating. The latest UN data suggests a global fertility level today of only 2.3. The University of Washington forecasts that the global population will start to decline before 2070.

Accepting Reality

The first step must be to accept reality. Reports of steep population declines are usually described in exceptionalist terms. The South Korean decline is due to “impossibly high housing costs” and a “highly competitive education system”. The latter has spawned a private tutoring system. This is so expensive that it can consume 10% of a family’s disposable income every year for each child. Having children is too expensive. China is in decline because of the “one child laws”. (A proposition that has not been substantiated).

This week the Office of National Statistics made an embarrassing “mistake”. They updated their forecasts for the UK population to include increased net migration. Unfortunately, they did not update their fertility numbers. This produced an impossible trajectory for its forecast. The actual was already way below the forecast. Subsequent analysis showed how optimistic the forecasts have been. Forecasts since 2014 show classic “hockey sticks” marching across the page. At each update the actual number is far lower than the previous forecasts. Each forecast then assumes that the decline will flatten. Worst still each forecast shows an upward rising trajectory. Governments need to have a realistic population forecast not an optimistic one. This needs to include all ages not just infants and the old. They need to have a “maximum immigration” policy. The combined impact on economic output needs to be modelled.

Agree a Model for the Cause.

Anna Rotkirch, Finnish Population Institute

She admitted that there was now no clear explanation of the decline on which to build a set of actions. The French Government may not agree with her. Their full plan has not been published. It was however announced that there would be a fertility check at 25. The premise seems to be that people do not understand how steeply fertility declines with age. How unsuccessful IVF is and how it too depends on age.

If changes in Society are required, then that will take time. Medical reproductive science could help. If female fertility can be extended, then there is longer for couples to decide to have a family. We certainly need to know whether certain plastics reduce male and female fertility.

Extinction

Population can decline as quickly as it grew. We do not understand why it is declining. This means that we should not talk about depopulation. Humans will start the process of becoming extinct in the next fifty years. Within the lifetime of my children. (We may have destroyed the planet in any case.)

Biological diversity is declining all over the planet. Humans are blamed for changes in the habitat that a particular species needs to survive. As a result, that species first becomes an endangered species. They then go extinct. How much will the human population decline before we are put on the endangered species list? Have we created a social and economic environment unsuitable for human life? We have agency, unlike other species. Can we mobilize to use it?