China’s recently published census, showing that its population has almost stopped growing, brought warnings of severe problems for the country. “Such numbers make grim reading for the party,” reported The Economist. This “could have a disastrous impact on the country,” wrote Huang Wenzheng, a fellow at the Center for China and Globalisation in Beijing, in the Financial Times.
But a comment posted on China’s Weibo was more insightful. “The declining fertility rate actually reflects the progress in the thinking of Chinese people – women are no longer a fertility tool.”
China’s fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman in 2020 is well below replacement level, but so, too, are fertility rates in every rich country. Australia’s rate is 1.66, the US rate is 1.64, and in Canada it is 1.47. In all developed economies, fertility rates fell below replacement in the 1970s or 1980s and have stayed there ever since.
When the US rate returned to just above two from 1990 to 2005, some commentators hailed America’s greater dynamism and “social confidence” versus “old Europe.” In fact, the increase was entirely due to immigration, with Hispanic immigrants initially maintaining the higher fertility rates of their less successful countries of origin. Since 2000, the US Hispanic fertility rate has fallen from 2.73 to 1.9, while rates for white people have been well below 2.0 since the 1970s and for black people since around 2000.
Only in poorer countries, concentrated in Africa and the Middle East, are much higher birth rates still observed. In India, all the more prosperous states – such as Maharashtra and Karnataka – have fertility rates below replacement level, with only the poorer states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh still well above. And while the national rate in 2018 was still 2.2, the Indian National Family Health Survey finds that Indian women would like to have, on average, 1.8 children.
A half-century of evidence suggests that in all prosperous countries where women are well educated and free to choose whether and when to have children, fertility rates fall significantly below replacement levels. If those conditions spread across the world, the global population will eventually decline.
A pervasive conventional bias assumes that population decline must be a bad thing. “China’s falling birth rate threatens economic growth,” opined the Financial Times, while several comments in the Indian press noted approvingly that India’s population would soon overtake China’s. But while absolute economic growth is bound to fall as populations stabilize and then decline, it is income per capita which matters for prosperity and economic opportunity. And if educated women are unwilling to produce babies to make economic nationalists feel good, that is a highly desirable development.
Meanwhile, arguments that stable or falling populations threaten per capita growth are hugely overstated and, in some cases, plain wrong.
True, when populations no longer grow, there are fewer workers per retiree, and health-care costs rise as a percent of GDP. But that is offset by the reduced need for infrastructure and housing investment to support a growing population. China currently invests 25% of GDP each year on pouring concrete to build apartment blocks, roads, and other urban infrastructure, some of which will be of no value as the population declines. By cutting that waste and spending more on health care and high technology, it can continue to flourish economically as the population declines.
Meanwhile, a stable and eventually falling global population would make it easier to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to avoid climate change, and alleviate the pressure that growing populations inevitably place on biodiversity and fragile ecosystems. And contracting workforces create stronger incentives for businesses to automate, while driving up real wages, which, unlike absolute economic growth, are what really matter to ordinary citizens.
In a world where technology enables us to automate ever more jobs, the far bigger problem is too many potential workers, not too few. China’s population aged 20 to 64 will likely fall by around 20% in the next 30 years, but productivity growth will continue to deliver rising prosperity. India’s population in that age band is currently growing by around ten million per year and will not stabilize until 2050.
But even when the Indian economy grows rapidly, as it did before the COVID-19 crisis, its highly productive “organised sector” of about 80 million workers – those working for registered companies and government bodies on formal contracts – fails to create additional jobs. Growth in the potential workforce simply swells the huge “informal sector” army of unemployed and underemployed people.
True, fertility rates far below replacement level create significant challenges, and China may well be heading in that direction. Many people expected that after the one-child policy was abolished in 2015, China’s fertility rate – then around 1.65 – might increase. But a look at the freely chosen birth rates of ethnic Chinese living in successful economies such as Taiwan (1.07) and Singapore (1.1) always made that doubtful. Other East Asian countries such as Japan (1.38) and Korea (1.09) have similarly low fertility.
At those rates, population decline will be precipitate rather than gradual. If Korea’s birth rate does not rise, its population could fall from 51 million today to 27 million by 2100, and the ratio of retirees to workers will reach levels that no amount of automation can offset.
Moreover, some surveys suggest that many families in low-fertility countries would like to have more children but are discouraged by high property prices, inaccessible childcare, and other obstacles to combining work and family life. Policymakers should therefore seek to make it as easy as possible for couples to have the number of children they ideally want. But the likely result will be average fertility rates well below replacement level in all developed countries, and, over time, gradually falling populations. The sooner that is true worldwide, the better for everyone.
Adair Turner, Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission, was Chair of the UK Financial Services Authority from 2008 to 2013. He is the author of many books, including Between Debt and the Devil. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2021, published here with permission.
69 Comments
Enjoyed the article. I would argue that lower population has manifold other benefits (e.g. food and energy security, quality of life etc.) To that end New Zealand should have a stated population aim to guide policy and avoid knee jerk changes. This would also allow us to plan for the future, make sure we had enough housing and infrastructure. Our forefathers where blessed with the abundance when they stepped off the boat in New Zealand, all we have to do is manage those resources responsibly.
Typical of you “growth forever” types, you look out the window and see space to grow.
Your leader, Hosking, once said Auckland could grow for hundreds of years. At the time it was growing at 3.5% because of mass immigration.
Conveniently, 3.5% means a doubling every 20 years which would have led to an Auckland population of 48 million after the first 100 years and over 1.5 billion over the next 100.
The mathematically illiterate clowns advocating growth forever probably think that’s possible too.
Pretty big straw man lumping me in with Mike Hosking there. And it looks more like 54 mil, but my maths could be wrong (1650000*(e^(0.035*100))). But it's obviously intellectually dishonest to assume that level of growth for 100 years.
And, yeah I do look out the window and see room to grow. We have one of the lowest population densities in the world (half that of the U.S.). Less than one percent of our land area is built up. I'd rather look out and see suburbs than the industrial wastelands we call dairy farms. We're going to need more immigration to create jobs as our population ages.
I doubt Mike was talking about a growth rate of 3.5% for hundreds of years. I believe we do have a lot of room for growth so long as we import the right people and equally grow the infrastructure. Outside Auckland, Wellington etc we could grow substantially and I don't think the negatives would outweigh the positives. The trick is how do we grow the regions?
kw - have you studied the Limits to Growth, or energy, or Entropy or carrying-capacity?
What do you base your claims on - particularly, which energy source, backed by what resource-stocks?
Ex fossil energy, the planet carried 1 billion at much lower consumption rates than ours.
Right
Google Manila Pollution - Examine the pictures
Manila’s air pollution has been linked to between 11,000 and 27,000 deaths in 2018 alone, according to a recent Greenpeace study, and affects 98% of the capitol region’s 12.8 million people.
Why is there so much pollution in Manila Bay?
The cause of all the pollution of Manila Bay has long been established – human waste flowing directly into hundreds of streams, some joining the Pasig River but many flowing directly into the bay.
Thankfully we're leading the charge on population declines by making it practically unaffordable to live here on your own, let alone with dependents. I'm not really sure that's the kind of place most New Zealanders actually want New Zealand to be, but what people actually want has been strangely ignored when it comes to central government and population planning.
Yeah, but the the West, Japan, Korea etc. are post industrial countries, whose birth rates naturally dropped with affluence. China is still a developing country which is ageing shockingly rapidly, by design. Their median age is already above that of the U.S. They won’t be a superpower; they’re like Usain Bolt tripping on right off the starting blocks because he decided not to tie his shoes.
NZ and the U.S are two of the few countries that have a reasonably sized Millennial population. It’s still not enough, we’ll still have to rely on immigration to create jobs, but we’re lucky. Depopulation is a very bad thing.
That's bollocks. Affluence? Try defining your vernacular. Create jobs? Why? If you don't keep introducing people, surely you get to 'enough'?
The Catholic church made the same intellectually-limited assumption as you, assuming more parishioners would mean more power, more control and more booty. Actually, it led to the slums of Mexico City and Sao Paulo, abject poverty due to too many people chasing too few resources. They could have had the same power, control and wealth, with 100 parishioners - who would have owned so much more, each.
Your comments are entwined with your chosen pen-name. You aren't about being your own voice; you clearly needed to defuse the message being given legs hereabouts. By the comments upthread, I think you might be losing..... Probably it doesn't help that your statements seem a little removed from fact.
The world is heading to and possibly reached over population. The signs are all there to be seen eg climate change, loss of habitats, extinction of whole types of animals, high levels of poverty etc. Humans need to reduce there numbers and footprint. It is about quality not quantity both of humans, the standard of living they have and the viablity of the planet on which we live. We live under some arrogant assumption that everything exsists at our behest and forget nature will always change things to return things back to balance. Ie covid 19 pandemic, spanish flu etc.
"Overpopulation is a function of technology. Pre-agricultural populations were coming up against resource limits thousands of years ago. And the signs are not there to be seen:
- "high levels of poverty": This is simply untrue. We have the lowest levels of relative poverty in human history.
- deforestation: It peaked in the 1980's. It will plummet when we come up with a synthetic replacement for beef (assuming we don't venture down the disastrous biofuels path, which this govt seems intent on doing). Developed countries are seeing afforestation.
- Climate change: Big problem; can only be solved by capitalism and technology (see the learning curves of battery and solar). Carbon emissions have peaked in many developed countries
(including the US).
- biodiversity loss: Nothing new, once again, see pre-agricultural populations (Quaternary Megafauna Extinction). The rate is still unacceptably high, but conservation is a luxury, therefore is dependent on economic growth. Fortunately it's not a trend that is accelerating.
The real arrogant assumption is naïve, privileged people in developed countries stating that we should stop economic growth. Perfect global income equality in a world where we freeze economic growth means everyone living on < $20 per day. Good luck with that. And pandemics were far worse in the past, when the global population was a fraction of what it is now.
Source: Our World in Data, generally: https://ourworldindata.org
You cannot genetically engineer enough fresh water to provide for all these extra billions you think this planet can support.
Yours is absolutely ding-a-ling thinking, there are limits to growth, always has been, always will be and we are already there, mate, just look at the destruction we have already caused for crying out loud.
Deluded.
In what way? And what do you mean by “unlimited” energy? Radioactive decay from inside the earth, terrestrial insolation, and the global stock of fissile material are all effectively renewable, with quantities of energy (and low entropy) vastly above what we need.
A convergent infinite series.
But anyway, I didn’t say anything about “infinite” economic growth. That cliche is just so ridiculous. We’re so far from being at that point, and once we are, we won’t be limited to this planet.
Name a single resource that humanity has ever run out of. It doesn’t happen. Technology improves, the burden on the environment lessens or reverses. Technology is the dominant term, not population. We’re not a bacterial infection or a cancer on the planet, or whatever foul metaphor these sad, misanthropic, Malthusian charlatans want to use.
"Technology improves, the burden on the environment lessens or reverses."
Nope. We just offshore our pollution, and buy the stuff from big-box stores. Jevons Paradox takes up the slack. In every way, we are adding to depletion counts and adding to pollution counts. CO2 is a classic, cod-collapse another. Reducing growth (think of it as acceleration) rates doesn't reduce cumulative totals. You're mixing what you count.
And yes, we've run out of ENOUGH of lots of stuff; unsaline ground, for the Sumerians, water for the Anasazi, trees for the Easter Islanders, firewood for the Greenland Norse, Moa hereabouts, Woolly Mammoth, lots of extinct protein-on-the-hoof. Phosphorus is coming, oil coal and gas are guaranteed. And Entropy never sleeps (learn about it).
Livestock use a crazy proportion of the earth's habitable land (something close to 40%), and most people in the world want to eat meat. Eat all the lentils you want, but it's probably easier to just come up with a cheaper manufactured version of meat than convince the growing global middle class not to eat it.
There's no need for population limits (how it it remotely politically viable to impose this internationally?). Global demographic trends will limit the world population anyway (see the article above). And we can afford a hell of a lot more people if we get rid of livestock.
puk,
"Conservation is a luxury". That tell me all I need to know about your worldview. You and to be fair, many others still see mankind as separate from and superior to the world in which we exist. Everything else is there just to serve our needs and if we destroy a habitat-tough luck on the flaura and fauna that once depended on it.
"dependent on economic growth". Well, infinite growth on a finite planet is not possible. There are indeed Limits To Growth. Our global economy depends on fossil fuels and many minerals and these will at some point run out. We are already seeing a sharp decline in the EROI of oil.
I could go on, but I suspect that it's not worth the effort.
Go and lecture someone in central Africa, living below the poverty line on why they should stop selling bush meat. See how that goes. It absolutely is a luxury. Only developed countries are seeing afforestation. The majority of the world lives on less than $20 USD a day. Most probably can’t afford to worry about conservation.
If you want to pause economic growth, then go ahead and adjust your lifestyle and subsist on $16USD a day. Because that’s the global average. If not, you’re asserting you are exceptional.
We don’t live apart from nature, but we are the only animal with the ability to reason in a general and abstract manner. So in that sense we are different.
I said nothing about infinite growth on a finite planet. That’s just a meaningless meme.
Luckily, we have better alternatives to fossil fuels.
“I could go on, but I suspect that it's not worth the effort.” No, it means you’ve exhausted the cliches from whatever crappy Netflix documentary you dragged all that from, and you have nothing else.
PUK - can I add an E?
Your relation to a human-construced, related-to-nothing-real concept (the dollar) tells it all. If you're above peddling a mantra (which I sincerely doubt) try reading:
https://www.amazon.com/Blip-Humanitys-self-terminating-experiment-indus…
At least one commenter here bothered - and I'll bet it made him think a tad. Even given that you are probably an on-behalf narrative-twister, read it anyway. Nothing like being really informed as to the counter-narrative........
With respect, this article & thread is most disagreeable and seeingly antihumanistic.
Its tuff because folk do get lost in ideas.
- hint, becareful of who finds the picture, when linked to population reduction agreeable.
https://www.amazon.com/Merchants-Despair-Environmentalists-Pseudo-Scien…
There was a time when humanity looked in the mirror and saw something precious, worth protecting and fighting forindeed, worth liberating. But now we are beset on all sides by propaganda promoting a radically different viewpoint. According to this idea, human beings are a cancer upon the Earth, a species whose aspirations and appetites are endangering the natural order. This is the core of antihumanism.
Merchants of Despair traces the pedigree of this ideology and exposes its deadly consequences in startling and horrifying detail. The book names the chief prophets and promoters of antihumanism over the last two centuries, from Thomas Malthus through Paul Ehrlich and Al Gore. It exposes the worst crimes perpetrated by the antihumanist movement, including eugenics campaigns in the United States and genocidal anti-development and population-control programs around the world.
Combining riveting tales from history with powerful policy arguments, Merchants of Despair provides scientific refutations to antihumanism’s major pseudo-scientific claims, including its modern tirades against nuclear power, pesticides, population growth, biotech foods, resource depletion, industrial development, and, most recently, fear-mongering about global warming. Merchants of Despair exposes this dangerous agenda and makes the definitive scientific and moral case against it.
Look around you, for crying out loud, we absolutely and utterly ARE a cancer on this earth.
It is anti-humanist to assert we can go on growing in number forever.
You clearly have no interest in the other species that have as much claim to this planet as we do.
And what are you suggesting as a means to force women to birth any or more children than they choose to? Eh?
Still in cognitive dissonance? You've had quite a run.
The questions is population control antihumanist, the will of some to deem that others should not have families.
China 1 Child (ex club of Rome).
Tied aid to India & Indonesia.
A quick Google search will help.
Here's the great big elephant in the room you choose to ignore, women in control of their lives and fertility choose fewer births, later starting to reproduce and some even decide to bypass the whole thing entirely, so the matter of "population control" is a follow on from (particularly) women having control of their own lives.
And yes, contraception is a form of population control, even if voluntary, however, DENYING it is a form of FORCED population growth and you think you are the humanist. Pffft
I don't think anyone is talking taking the measures China did, there is no need.
You're considering birth control without considering death control. Aldous Huxley makes a point in "Brave new world revisited" that death control can be as simple as providing fresh drinking water and basic sanitation, and is universally accepted even among primitive cultures. Birth control on the other hand, needs sophisticated tech, and often is culturally rejected. The result of thoughtless application of death control can be an increase in the amount of human misery and suffering through famine and starvation. I think Huxley was critical non thinking do-gooders " licking the wounds of leapers as a form of self abasement". I wonder what he would have thought of the self righteous left woke movement of today.
For readers of the thread here is some further background.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15449959.amp
As the world population reaches seven billion people, the BBC's Mike Gallagher asks whether efforts to control population have been, as some critics claim, a form of authoritarian control over the world's poorest citizens.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2013/11/04/us-foreign-policy-birth-co…
For over 60 years, the U.S has promoted family planning programs to protect its own interests in the developing world rather than to promote women’s empowerment.
NO! The opposite is the truth, that where people are reproducing enough to increase population, women DO NOT have full control of their lives, in fact some have barely any. How dare anybody step into that arena without taking that into account. It seems things are never properly regarded from this point of view.
Women, given the chance to rear what children they have to adulthood and the chance to control their fertility WILL do it. Having children is extremely burdensome and risky for women, it should come as no surprise that when the opportunity arises for autonomy, women will grab it with both hands.
You are trying to justify keeping women as underlings and I am not impressed with that one little bit.
Interesting. Zubrin, the author, is the founder of the "Mars society". Perhaps he could take his techno utopian nonsense to Mars and experience an environment where limits are in your face every second of your existence? Growthists are ultimately the true destroyers of human dignity. Appears the ignored "pseudo scientific tirade" against pesticides and other novel chemistry is steralising humanity anyhow. Fake humanists pretending they care, by virtue of denial. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/26/falling-sperm-counts-hu….
Bollocks. Technology merely exploits the next and the next and the next - until there is no next.
It creates nothing; no energy, no resources.
And, last time I checked, you can't eat a combine harvester. Or run an ICE vehicle without fuel. Or keep the rain off virtually.
It was a belief, much the same as religion, and many are contemplating the parallels.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/merchants-of-doubt-9781596916104/ 2010
your link? 2013
Now they weren't naming their piece of spin as an attempt to nullify, perchance? Seems a bit too close, linguistically.......
But intellectually, it's not even close. More than that, it points to you as another spinner. Who do you represent? Or what is your life-story that it needs peddle such bollocks?
Just a reminder that the population of Africa is projected to be 4 billion by the year 2050.
Also, the population of New Guinea has doubled from 3 million to 6 million in the last 20 years.
So, over the next century guess who will be swarming towards our pristine shores.
And don't believe the bragging from Peter Beck that RocketLab will have the capacity to transfer a billion excess earthlings to Mars over the next 50 years..... after he has succeeded in littering earth's space with a clutter of satellites.
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