The Fertility Crisis

‘Some of what we’ve been thinking of as fiction, from stories such as The Handmaid’s Tale and Children of Men, is rapidly becoming reality […] At the time, no one thought the portrayal of catastrophic declines in birth rates could be linked to toxic chemicals in the air and water; somehow, that seemed like dramatic license on the author’s part. But now the novel and the series it engendered seem disturbingly prophetic’ (Shanna H. Swan)

We have been so concerned with the issue of overpopulation that we could not foresee what some are calling the ‘Great Demographic Reversal’, in which high life-expectancy and low birth-rates create an aged population that cannot sustain itself.

As analyst Peter Zeihan explains, development and industrialisation reshaped global demographics. It extended life spans, encouraged urbanization and improved trade, which meant more workers and more consumers, creating ‘the fastest economic growth humanity has ever seen’. However, as Zeihan and others are arguing, global aging didn’t stop once we reached that perfect moment of growth:

A central factor in every growth story that accompanies industrialization is that much of the economic growth comes from a swelling population. What most people miss is that there’s another step in the industrialization-cum-urbanization process: lower mortality increases the population to such a degree that it overwhelms any impact from a decline in birth rates . . . but only for a few decades. Eventually gains in longevity max out, leaving a country a greater population, but with few children. Yesterday’s few children leads to today’s few young workers leads to tomorrow’s few mature workers. And now, at long last, tomorrow has arrived

According to Zeihan, the period of 1980–2015 has been a ‘unique, isolated, and blessed moment in…