From the Editor's Desk

The Low Fertility Fallacy - Foreign Affairs

Many politicians and pundits around the world have raised the alarm in recent years about declining fertility rates. They evoke the ominous specters of imploding populations, a “gray tsunami” of older people, the demise of the family, and even the very extinction of mankind. They can marshal a good deal of data in issuing these warnings. The world’s total fertility rate has plunged over the past 70 years from around five children per woman in 1950 to 2.25 children in 2023. In 2023, more than 100 countries had a total fertility rate below the level needed to maintain their population sizes over the long term, the so-called replacement rate, often pegged to about 2.1 children per woman.

It is true that total fertility rates in many countries have dropped to historically low levels, but those figures are, on their own, no reason for panic. Some of the decline in the total fertility rate has more to do with changes in when people have children than it does with how many children people have in their lifetimes. Fertility decline is also the product of many positive developments, including better contraception, a reduction in teenage pregnancy, and higher levels of female education. The consequences of low fertility can also be easily exaggerated. With astute planning and policies, countries can survive and even thrive as their societies grow older.

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