Russia is preparing a bill to ban the “childfree ideology,” Deputy Minister of Justice Vsevolod Vukolov said , calling the conscious refusal to have children “extremistically oriented.” In his latest May decree defining Russia’s “national development goals,” Vladimir Putin ordered an increase in birth rates. The average number of children per woman should increase from the current 1.41 to 1.6 by 2030 and to 1.8 by 2036. The problem with the total fertility rate is not unique to Russia: by 2050, the TFR will be sufficient to reproduce the population in only 49 countries. There is not a single country in the world where the birth rate has not decreased in 2021 compared to 1950. And decrees cannot help here. As modern research shows, even radical government regulation measures, such as bans on contraception and abortions, are not capable of reversing this trend.
Demographic alarmism
The decline in birth rates is one of the popular topics of alarmist discourse, along with global warming, the depletion of oil and gas reserves, and… overpopulation of the planet, which will inevitably lead to universal famine, as the English demographer and economist Thomas Malthus bequeathed in the late 18th century. The peak of popularity of apocalyptic Malthusian expectations came in the 1960s and 1970s. The world population was indeed growing at an alarming rate. Scientists noticed the problem and provided a mathematical basis for it. In 1960, Austrian physicist and mathematician Heinz von Foerster and his colleagues published an article in Science with a provocative title: “Doomsday: Friday, November 26, 2026. On this day, the human population will become infinite if it continues to grow as it has for the past two millennia.”
“Judgment Day: November 26, 2026. On this day, the human population will become infinite if it continues to grow as it has for the past two millennia.”
In the article, the scientists showed that the growth of the Earth’s population from the time of the Roman Empire to 1958 is very accurately described by the hyperbolic model. Unlike exponential population growth, the speed of which is proportional to the population, with hyperbolic growth the speed is proportional to the square of the population. That is, growth is slow at first, and then rapidly accelerates and goes to infinity. If the trend continued, the Earth’s population would indeed become infinite in 2026.
Of course, scientists already understood that this was just an entertaining mathematical game, not a serious forecast. It could not come true under any circumstances – if only because there is a biological limit to the speed of reproduction of any living organisms, including humans. However, the obvious unrealistic nature of such forecasts did not prevent either alarmist interpretations of such scientific publications or expectations of a Malthusian apocalypse.
The hyperbolic growth discovered by von Foerster ended at the same time it was discovered. The maximum rate of population growth – 2.3% per year – was reached in 1963. After hovering around this mark for several years, the growth rate began to decline. Today it is about 0.9% per year.
The maximum rate of population growth was 2.3% per year in 1963. Today it is 0.9% per year.
Modern demographic models are more reliable than climate models and predict the future surprisingly well, judging by the forecasts that have already come true. According to these models, the population growth rate will cross the zero mark in the 2080s. Having reached a maximum of 10.4 billion, the population will stop growing and will begin to slowly decline by the end of the century. What will happen after 2100, we still don’t really know.
There begins the demographic “terra incognita”, to which we cannot extrapolate the patterns known to us today. By the end of the century, most societies will enter a stage of demographic development that only a few developed countries have reached so far (with low mortality, high life expectancy, a high proportion of elderly people and low birth rates). Scientists do not yet have enough statistics to judge the general patterns of social behavior at this stage.
However, no matter how successful science is and how accurate the forecasts become, demographic alarmism does not go out of fashion. Only its direction changes. In the days of Heinz von Foerster, people feared overpopulation; today, they fear depopulation. On March 20, 2024, the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet published the results of a detailed analysis of birth rate data for 1950–2021 from 204 countries with a forecast up to 2100.
The findings of this study only confirm what was already known. The situation with the birth rate is now quite clear: it is declining all over the world. And we are not talking about the “average temperature in the hospital,” that is, not just about a decrease in some average indicator, behind which lies a variety of unique demographic scenarios and trajectories. No, in the history of the birth rate, everything is both simpler and more serious.
There is not a single country in the world where the birth rate has not fallen in 2021 compared to 1950. The decline has occurred everywhere, including where the authorities have made great efforts to stop it (as, for example, in Singapore, where the birth rate was stimulated with all its might starting in the mid-1980s; at first it grew slightly, but then continued to decline).
There is not a single country in the world where the birth rate did not decline in 2021 compared to 1950
Why is the birth rate falling?
Of course, each country and each region has its own specifics. In some places, the birth rate fell very quickly and sharply. For example, in the “economic tigers” of Southeast Asia (South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan), the TFR indicator has fallen from 4.5-6.8 to 0.9-1.1 over 70 years. This is an extremely low level – much lower than the population reproduction threshold, which is considered to be 2.1.
In the most disadvantaged, poor and backward African countries, such as Niger, Chad and Mali, the decline was minimal: from 7.3–7.6 to 6.2–7.0. In rich European countries, such as France, Great Britain or Sweden, where the birth rate was already low in 1950, it still declined (from 2.2–2.8 to 1.5–1.8). A slightly sharper decline is typical for Eastern European countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania – here the birth rate fell from 2.4–3.0 to 1.1–1.5.
Globally, the birth rate has fallen from 4.8 to 2.2. While in 1950, the birth rate in almost all countries was above the replacement level (2.1), by 2021 only 46% of countries in the world (94 out of 204) were still above this threshold. Half of them are African countries south of the Sahara.
By 2050, the global fertility rate will have fallen to 1.8, and there will be only 49 countries (24%) with a fertility rate above 2.1. The corresponding figures for 2100 are 1.6 and 6 (2.9%). The six countries that will be the last to join the club of countries that cannot reproduce their own population are Somalia, Niger, Chad, Tajikistan and two small island states: Tonga and Samoa – for which the forecasts may not be so reliable.
By 2100, Somalia, Niger, Chad, Tajikistan, Tonga and Samoa will be the last countries that can still reproduce their own populations.
A decline in birth rates is an inevitable attribute of a certain stage of the so-called “demographic transition.” All countries go through it at different times and at different speeds.
Pre-industrial societies were characterized by high birth rates (usually about 6-8 children per woman), high mortality, low life expectancy, poverty, and illiteracy of the majority of the population. Humanity was in this semi-starved state for almost its entire history. From time to time, technical or cultural innovations appeared that allowed for increased food production. But people did not begin to live richer, because all the gains from innovations were spent not on raising the standard of living, but on producing new people.
For most of human history, all the gains from innovation were spent not on raising the standard of living, but on the birth of new people.
The population grew slowly, following the equally slow development of technologies that gradually increased the “carrying capacity” of the Earth, allowing more people to feed on it. This state of society, when sluggish population growth “eats up” all the gains from innovation, and people remain poor, half-starved and illiterate, is called the “Malthusian trap”. It once seemed the only possible one.
Thomas Malthus himself thought so, describing it at the end of the 18th century. He considered poverty ineradicable, because the population responds to any improvement in living conditions with accelerated reproduction and/or a decrease in mortality. The population grows, which causes conditions to worsen again. Everyone remains just as poor and illiterate, and technological progress continues at a snail’s pace.
Women’s education against reproduction
However, humanity found a way out of the Malthusian trap. Like von Foerster, Malthus scientifically described the process just when it was ending. First in England (at the end of the 17th century), and then in other Western European countries (in the 18th century), production growth began to gradually outpace population growth. The Industrial Revolution began. The standard of living after endless stagnation suddenly began to grow. Positive feedback loops were activated, making the process self-sustaining. Literacy increased, scientific and technological progress accelerated – this led to an even greater increase in production and living standards. People still continued to multiply vigorously “according to Malthus”, but no matter how hard they tried, they could no longer keep up with the growth of production, and progress continued at an accelerating pace.
The solution to the problem of hunger, state and public care for the weak and disadvantaged, the development of hygiene and medicine naturally led to a precipitous drop in mortality, including infant and child mortality. It is at this point that the demographic boom begins: mortality has already fallen to unprecedentedly low levels, and the birth rate remains at the usual “pre-industrial” level of 5-7 children per woman. The population of the country, which has entered this phase of the demographic transition, is growing rapidly.
Today, almost all countries in the world, even the most backward ones, have already reached this phase. After all, now it is not necessary to carry out an industrial revolution, or develop education and science. It is enough to agree with rich countries on the supply of food, medicine and other necessary goods, on assistance in organizing a health care system – and voila, the mortality rate in the country drops sharply, and the population grows.
However, population growth cannot continue forever. After a certain period of time (the time frame varies by country) after the death rate has declined, the birth rate inevitably begins to decline. As numerous studies have shown, one of the most important factors in this (and perhaps the most important, although not the only one) is female education. This is evident from the results of cross-cultural comparisons: the level of female literacy is one of the best predictors of birth rate in a country.
One of the most important factors in the decline in birth rates is female education
Intra-population comparisons show the same thing: in all the societies studied, educated women give birth to fewer children. This conclusion is supported by the results of special studies aimed at identifying not just correlations, but cause-and-effect relationships. In a number of cases, it was possible to show in a controlled situation that female education is the cause of fewer children, and not vice versa.
And this is logical, because access to education opens up new life opportunities for women, many of which are easier to realize if you don’t have too many children. A hypothetical illiterate peasant woman loses less by giving birth to a third, sixth or ninth child (often this is her best career plan and almost the only available way to improve her social status) than an educated city dweller who wants to be a successful doctor, engineer, banker or diplomat.
In addition, educated women are usually more responsible both in planning their own lives and in the health and well-being of their children (both those already born and those expected in the future). All this cannot but have a negative impact on a woman’s desire to have more children.
Other important factors are the availability of contraceptives and the decline in the economic benefits of childbearing (roughly speaking, in an agrarian society, children are capital, while in an industrial society, they are just expenses). Due to the sharply reduced mortality rate, the idea of the high value of human life and the responsibility of parents to their children is spreading in society. It is becoming unfashionable and unprestigious to “breed like rabbits.” And so people postpone having children for later, making a career and skipping the fertile age in order to “not breed poverty” and provide their children with “decent living conditions.”
The rich Western countries entered this phase of demographic transition in the first half of the 20th century, and now most countries are rolling along the same tracks. Hence the global decline in birth rates. Even in the most backward countries, people began to live better on average than 50–70 years ago, and there, too, manifestations of the global trend have become noticeable.
No matter how successful a society is in prolonging life and reducing mortality, a few decades after the birth rate falls below the replacement level (2.1 children per woman), population decline begins.
The process is irreversible.
In Russia, according to Rosstat, the total fertility rate fell to 1.41 in 2023. Vladimir Putin recently ordered that the TFR be increased to 1.6 by 2030 and to 1.8 by 2036. This is a rather modest task: Putin did not even aim to return the population to the replacement threshold. Is it feasible? In theory, yes.
Putin’s plan, both in scale and in terms of time, is well within the limits of small and largely random fluctuations that occur in individual countries against the backdrop of a general long-term decline in birth rates. The chances of success will increase if a set of well-planned measures to stimulate childbirth are adopted. However, even if the set goal is achieved, this will not create the preconditions for stopping the decline in Russia’s population. At best, the process will slow down a little.
Judging by the unsuccessful attempts of some countries, humanity does not yet know how to stop the decline in birth rates. Measures that seem obvious to politicians and social workers – multifaceted support for families with children, promotion of childbearing, assistance to the poor, easier access to education for children from large families, and so on – can only give a modest and short-term effect.
Neither radical measures like a total ban on contraception and abortions, nor even the seizure of power by religious or ideological fanatics and the imposition of laws and values that stimulate childbearing work. On the scale of small religious communities and sects, this can sometimes produce results, but on the scale of large states, it does not.
On the scale of small religious communities and sects, radical measures to increase the birth rate can produce results, but on the scale of large states, they will not.
Even in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the birth rate fell from 6.2 to 1.5, with the fastest decline occurring after the Islamic Revolution, in the 1980s and 1990s. A similar picture is in Saudi Arabia and other religious Muslim countries. North Korea has not escaped the general trend: from 1950 to 2021, the birth rate there fell, according to available data, from 5.4 to 1.5 children per woman.
An interesting case is Afghanistan, where the Taliban, who seized power in 2021, are trying to completely ban female education. Such a ban could theoretically increase the birth rate, especially since it was already high (more than four children per woman), and the level of female education was extremely low even without the Taliban. However, the effect is not yet visible. The birth rate in Afghanistan continues to fall and is now around 3.75. Most likely, for such measures to work, a generation of downtrodden, uneducated women must grow up. One can only hope that the cave fanatics will not stay in power for so long.
Perhaps all these methods do not work because even the most inhumane regimes and fanatical dictators fail to “turn the tide back” to the point of dispersing the cities and turning educated city dwellers into illiterate peasants. Pol Pot tried once, but did not achieve complete success: the birth rate in Cambodia has fallen from 6.6 to 2.6 children per woman in 70 years, which is not much different from the situation in Laos and Myanmar. In Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, the birth rate has fallen more sharply: from 6.7-6.9 to 1.3-2.1.
In general, as a rule, the faster life improves in a country, the faster the birth rate falls there. And vice versa: in countries where people live the worst, the birth rate falls more slowly. Against this background, there are interesting exceptions – such as Israel, where the birth rate remains high and falls slowly, despite a good quality of life – but they do not make a difference.
The faster life improves in a country, the faster the birth rate falls there.
Demographic modeling also shows that both humanity as a whole and individual countries have little chance of seriously slowing the decline in birth rates, let alone reversing it. Thus, the same article in The Lancet examines four alternative scenarios. The basic model assumes that societies will develop more or less as they do now, along a well-trodden path known and understood by scientists. In this case, the average global birth rate is expected to be 1.83 by 2050, and 1.59 in 2100.
The first alternative scenario assumes the implementation of the UN’s Napoleonic plans to develop education throughout the world, including its poorest and most backward corners. This, of course, will accelerate the decline in fertility, and we will have a TFR of 1.65 in 2050 and 1.56 in 2100.
If contraceptives are made available to absolutely everyone on the planet (another pipe dream that is unlikely to come true), then the corresponding numbers will be 1.64 and 1.52. But if families with children are supported as much as possible everywhere and ideal conditions for reproduction are created, we can hope for values of about 1.93 and 1.68, which is still significantly lower than the reproduction level.
Thus, it is unlikely that the global decline in birth rates will be stopped either globally or in individual countries. Neither international organizations like the UN or WHO, nor democracies, nor theocracies, nor bloody dictators will be able to cope with this task. The process cannot be stopped, and its rate can be adjusted only within a very small range.
It is unlikely that the global decline in birth rates will be stopped either globally or in individual countries
Dangerous tension
A separate question is how the world will change as a result of the global decline in birth rates. Most likely, quite dramatically. The increase in the proportion of elderly people will increase the burden on the healthcare system and on people of working age, who will have to support more pensioners. Population aging is a serious problem.
But there are mitigating circumstances: the development of medicine and the general improvement of living conditions lead not only to the prolongation of people’s lives, but also to an increase in the period of healthy life. The percentage of elderly people who continue to work for the benefit of society will grow. In addition, the increase in the share of elderly disabled citizens will be compensated by a decrease in the share of children who also do not work and for whom society must take care. And the development of technology will allow the economy to continue to reduce its need for labor.
But the most serious changes will be related to the fact that the birth rate is falling extremely unevenly across countries. In places where it has long since fallen – primarily in the prosperous countries of the West – the population has stopped growing, and in some places has even begun to decline. The rapid growth of the population of Asia is also coming to an end – in the second half of the century it will begin to decline.
The only region where the population will continue to grow until 2100 is sub-Saharan Africa. Almost all of the expected population growth on Earth by the end of the century will be African (excluding North Africa, where the timing of demographic dynamics is different – the Middle East). Every second newborn in 2100 will be dark-skinned African (today – every fourth).
Every second newborn in 2100 will be dark-skinned African (today it is every fourth)
As a result, in 2100 our great-grandchildren will find themselves in a world with a population of just under 10.4 billion people, of which 4.69 billion will be Asian, 3.91 billion African, 0.67 billion North American, 0.59 billion European, and 0.43 billion South American. For comparison, today the numbers are: Asia – 4.78, Africa – 1.49, North America – 0.61, Europe – 0.74, South America – 0.44.
Given the expected economic growth and socio-cultural development of poor and backward countries, such a change in demographic proportions will inevitably lead to an increase in their influence in all spheres: economic, cultural, scientific, military. This will most likely be facilitated by mass migration of the population from poor countries, where the birth rate remains high, to rich ones, where it has already fallen below the replacement level.
The question arises: will modern “Western” ideals like freedom and democracy, gender and other equality, concern for environmental issues, and faith in the power of science manage to capture the minds of those societies that will dominate the world in 50–100 years? Until recently, the export of Western ideals seemed to be going well – they spread around the world along with smartphones, McDonald’s, and rising prosperity. This process was spurred on by the general recognition that Western countries are “the most advanced,” but to what extent this is predetermined for the future is a debatable issue.
Thus, demographic dynamics are indeed bringing the world closer to serious changes. But the issue is not the global decline in birth rates as such, and not the fact that the growth of the Earth’s population should stop in 60 years, after which it will begin to decrease very slowly. 10 billion is not a small number. The main challenges will be associated with the extremely uneven distribution of the rates of this decline across countries and regions – and the birth rate will be higher in countries where the quality of life is relatively lower. Overpopulation of disadvantaged regions against the background of relative underpopulation of rich and prosperous regions can become the cause of social tension, which will only increase until the end of the century. However, it is worth remembering that this phenomenon is temporary: by the end of the century, there will be no regions with high birth rates left in the world.