By Steve Goreham
Originally published in WND.
The age of overpopulation is over. The age of underpopulation is here. After decades of warnings and fear about an overpopulation crisis, population is now rapidly declining in most of the world. The overpopulation disaster predicted by world elites did not occur.
Total fertility rate is the average number of children born per woman. Demographers tell us that a country’s fertility rate must be at least 2.1 children per woman to sustain the current level of population.
According to data from the United Nations, total world population still continues to rise, but population is declining in all major nations, where fertility rates have fallen below the minimum population replacement rate. Africa is the only continent where the population continues to grow. According to birth rates and without counting immigration flows, population is now falling in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, the United States, and all European nations except Monaco and the Faroe Islands.
For the last four decades of the 20th Century, world leaders warned of a coming catastrophe from an uncontrolled rise in global population. In 1950, the average woman was birthing about five children during her lifetime. Global population was growing at a rate of about two percent per year by 1955.
The Population Bomb, written by Paul Ehrlich in 1968, became a worldwide best seller. The prologue of the book stated, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.” The author warned of coming famines and resource shortages and advocated for compulsory population control.
The fear of overpopulation produced a population control movement by the early 1970s. A consistent theme of the movement was that population growth was unplanned. Ehrlich stated: “A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people.”
The United Nations indicated that people were not intelligent enough to plan their own families. James Grant, Undersecretary General for the UN, wrote in 1992: “Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology available to the human race.”
Convinced by the overpopulation elites, governments of the world endorsed tragic population control measures. By the 1970s, it became US government policy to grant foreign aid only if population control measures were implemented. The World Bank and the UN also established policies requiring population control in exchange for loans or aid.
During the last decades of the 20th Century, population programs proposed by Western intellectuals and the UN were implemented in the form of anti-human policies by the governments of China, India, and dozens of other nations. The government of India established sterilization and intrauterine device insertion quotas in 1966. Over 40 million people were sterilized between 1965 and 1985, most coercively.
The People’s Republic of China implemented population policies in 1970 and adopted a one-child policy for all families in 1979. By March 2013, the China government reported that 336 million abortions and 222 million sterilizations had been carried out since 1971. Sex-selection abortion became common and even the killing of girl babies was practiced in both China and India.
Population control policies typically disproportionally impacted disadvantaged races or social classes. In India, coercive policies often targeted people of lower castes. In 1966, sterilization programs were set up at federally funded Indian Health Service hospitals in the US. Thousands of Native American women were sterilized between 1966 and 1976, often without informed consent. In Peru, sterilizations targeted rural natives of Incan descent.
But the overpopulation intellectuals were wrong. Famine did not kill hundreds of millions of people as Ehrlich predicted. Instead, an agricultural revolution increased global output of corn, rice, and wheat by a factor of five from 1960 to 2023. The malnourished portion of world population declined from 30 percent in 1950 to 10 percent today and continues to fall.
The world fertility rate dropped from about five children per woman in 1950 to 2.3 children per woman in 2021 and continues to fall. The population growth rate dropped to 0.82 percent per year by 2021 and is declining rapidly.
Nations moved from agricultural, to industrial, to technological societies, achieving the elimination of infectious disease, improved sanitation, improved food supply, a decline in infant mortality, and rising levels of education. Women entered the work force in larger numbers and family sizes declined.
But despite tragic implementation of population control policies in several nations, today’s families are having fewer children, the world population is stabilizing, and the predicted overpopulation disaster did not happen. Governments now pursue programs to boost family size in China, Japan, South Korea, and many nations of Europe.
But didn’t population control programs cause the drop in fertility rates? The answer is “no.” Fertility rates dropped faster in South Korea than in China, driven by economic development, rising incomes, and increased levels of education and workforce participation for women, without forced population control measures. Fertility rates dropped faster in Brazil and Mexico due to demographic changes, than in India where forced population control was employed.
What is the lesson from the overpopulation crisis that did not occur? The United Nations, the intellectuals, and strident political leaders were dead wrong about overpopulation. People do not multiply like cancer cells. Rather than being a species “out of control,” humans plan their own families and react to changing societal conditions. The lesson from the overpopulation debacle is that people adapt to their environment.
But the United Nations and world elites now warn of a coming climate catastrophe. They demand a costly energy transition to Net Zero emissions. They demand that we change our transportation and our home appliances, that we stop eating meat, and that we adopt hundreds of other proposed climate-saving remedies. Will we have a climate disaster, or will the global elites be wrong again?
Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy and the author of the new bestselling book Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure.
Excellent, because where I live feels really overpopulated.
Then move !!
Lots of low-population areas around the globe.
There are indeed lots of thinly populated areas. But a lot of them are too bloody cold most of the year for much in the way of agriculture
and a lot of them are not.
That’s one option, and a very difficult one at the moment. Another option that I’d prefer would simply be to reduce the population where I currently live. (Sydney, Australia)
Start with yourself!
I have indeed started with myself, by abstaining from having children. 🕺
Then I won’t frighten you with tales of open borders….
Here in the UK, about 50% of the work-able population doesn’t work (welfare state) or is paid to do jobs that have no productive (particularly for that rapidly expanding cancer we call Government).
That means one half of the population is being supported by the other – and Government borrows and prints money so the non-productive half can buy goods and services from the producing half. This causes inflation and transfer of wealth from producers to non-producers.
In economic and social terms, we don’t need half the population. Rid of them, the productive half would be much wealthier. Reduced birth rates is the natural process whereby populations respond to changing social and economic and other environmental conditions.
The thing NOT to do is import immigrant poverty to artificially keep population numbers up to ‘do the jobs that need doing’. These jobs don’t exist – we have machines – and it just increases the number of none-producers to be supported by the producers.
More reduction please.
In November 2023 there were 1,328,602 Full Time Employees in the NHS
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-workforce-statistics/november-2023
To give that some context
On 1 April 2023 the total size of the full-time UK armed forces (trained and untrained) was just under 152,400 personnel
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7930/
So, you could say that the NHS is 8.7 times larger than the national defence – trained and untrained.
Need I remind anyone of the zeitgeist? Nobody wants the funding for their particular worry, existential threat etc to go into drought mode.
Why are NHS waiting lists so long?
“A South Bristol doctor could face being struck off – not because of anything he’s done in his work, but because he keeps getting arrested for protesting about the climate emergency.
Dr Patrick Hart is a GP with Bridge View Medical, one of the largest GP surgery groups in Bristol. He has been told he faces a tribunal by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, the disciplinary arm of the General Medical Council”.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/bristol-doctor-xr-faces-being-9208106
One of a great many medico-activists. And they have several causes at least.
It seems that the U.S. population now includes tens of thousands of military aged Chinese men that crossed into the country via very well organized routes. At current rates, their numbers could soon rival those of our National Guard. Why the red carpet?
Red carpet, LOL, commie RED infiltrator carpet.
“Here in the UK, about 50% of the work-able population doesn’t work”
You are counting married women / domestic partners who do not work outside the home (34% in UK, 40% in US) and claiming government employees don’t do anything. That is certainly not true of the UK health sector, with about 1.5 million NHS workers, out of total UK employment of about 33 million.
For the other UK government workers, the less work they do, the less they damage the UK economy, as a general rule of thumb.
If the UK were to rid itself of the non-productive population (half the people), there would be half the need for the products of the productive half. Then the productive half would have half as many jobs as before leading to the rebirth of a non-productive population at roughly 1/4 its prior size. When the new productive half sees that it has half as many customers, it will have to shrink more, and so on and so forth. The scheme reduces population to a hunter-gather size where each provides for themselves. There seems to be an error in your prescription.
Or… The productive ones relax a little more and do half the work and enjoy life.
I see no problem in providing for the providers only, I accept that I’ll have to work only 50% of the time for the same standard of living.
Um …we seem to be in violent agreement – I too want “more reduction”.
“No one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.”
Yogi Berra
“The age of overpopulation is over. The age of underpopulation is here. After decades of warnings and fear about an overpopulation crisis, population is now rapidly declining in most of the world. The overpopulation disaster predicted by world elites did not occur.”
This is interesting as it is entirely juxtaposed to current left wing [Malthusian] ideas. Take the example of Matthew Parris; a former Conservative MP and a very out there gay man. He, along with many others who chime with his ‘utilitarian’ thinking, believes…
“‘Our growing interest in assisted dying may reflect a largely unconscious realisation that we simply cannot afford extreme senescence or desperate infirmity for as many such individuals as our society is producing. “Your time is up” will never be an order, but – yes, the objectors are right – may one day be the kind of unspoken hint that everybody understands. And that’s a good thing.’”
Why not have Carousel? [/sarc just in case…] But Parris wants to be more selective – an elitist thing, I’m sure
“As it happens, Parris has been making virtually the same argument for many years now. In 2015, he argued in the Spectator that there will come a time when ‘it may be thought selfish of some individuals (including potentially ourselves) to want to carry on’. Yet few people batted an eyelid back then. So what has changed?
The answer is that campaigners for assisted suicide and euthanasia have – almost – succeeded in their PR drive to make their position seem like the ‘compassionate’ one. In reality, any proposal for legalised assisted suicide assumes that humanity can be divided into two camps – those whose suicide we should strenuously try to prevent, and those whose suicide should be encouraged and assisted.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/04/03/the-inhumanity-of-assisted-dying/
Parris has said the quiet bit out loud. The generational conflict first manifested itself and was hyped up in 2016/17 by an eager mediaset, focussed on the apparent wrong result in the referendum. As they put it, stupid old people wrecking young people’s futures.
Neither population ecology nor anything else will sway the new Malthusians. They are on a mission.
I noticed a few days ago that Zaraya ter Beek in the Netherlands chose euthanasia rather than live with her mental health issues. I was wondering what groups or organisations the Netherlands has in place to push that as an option.
It has been a long time coming but finally the wider public awareness of our depopulation future is beginning to be realised.
The media has been intentionally slow at acknowledging the direction of travel the population of the world is heading in. No doubt much of that silence the MSM adopted was due to the reality not complimenting their over hyped overpopulation crisis.
The natural balance that nature always creates, is happening. It is driven by unavoidable environmental change, in this case the urbanisation of humanity and the wealth increase we have enjoyed. That good fortune is due to industrialisation and mechanisation of all farming activities across the world.
The one sure fired way of reversing the reduction in population trend would be to remove access to affordable energy. Now who/what does that policy idea bring to mind? UNhelpful, UNscientific UNcivilised, WHO could it possibly be, that wants to wreck the natural healthy balance of humanity?
I wish the UK would lose a few tens of millions.
Preferably telephone sanitisers…
Civil servants (working from home)…
I wish a few of them would turn into car mechanics. I am down to my last running vehicle while two are off the road because the earliest I have been able to book them in for repairs is two weeks hence, and I booked them two weeks ago.
I have no reason to believe any necessary parts will be quickly available either. I waited over a week for a very ordinary diesel injector last year. So a few more truck drivers, customs brokers, and who ever else I need to move and do things would be welcome.
Feel free to carp about me giving customs brokers a pass. I dislike the idea too. If we’re going to effectively have open borders why can’t it be for stuff? It’s not like we have much of a manufacturing base to protect.
Better to lose the recidivist criminals first.
“Total fertility rate is the average number of children born per woman.”
That is birth rate. Fertility is a quality not a quantity – it has a level, not rate.
There are two key elements both derived from the use of Fossil Fuels.
1 Health
2 Wealth
With wealth comes good health survival of children into adulthood and survival of adults into old age.
People had large numbers 10+ but until the industrial revolution only a couple survived long enough to have children of their own. When health improved large families became the norm for a couple of generations but that was replaced within a couple of generations to 2 or 3 children
Anybody who has done ancestry research could have told Erhlich that. 17th and 18th century 2 or 3 surviving children late 18th and19th large numbers of children surviving. 20th century reducing family sizes.
The same effect has happened round the world. Give Africa the means to create wealth and population growth will halt and with economic migration.
Despite wealth supporting double figures of children is a difficult undertaking.
I admire your optimism, Ben, but there is no evidence that giving Africa anything, other than birth-control pills, would produce any benefit. The well-established fact is that Africa has the lowest G-factor brain function (established by passive testing including fMRI and alpha wave low asymmetry synchronization, commonly called IQ) and their cultures are dysfunctional. Enter BRICS, who will pretend to give them something. Why? Because Africa has abundant Natural Resources.
Telling scary stories about others is a surefire way to gain influence and money, always has been, always will be. That’s how you get the attention of a pretty large proportion of any society in any age. Whether it be using religion (“hell”), politics (“the other faction is killing us”, or “is going to kill us”), racism, environmentalism (“they’re killing the planet”, or “they’re killing the whales”, or “they’re killing the honey bees”, yadda yadda yadda).
There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to human behavior, whether it was 10 thousand years ago, 100 years ago, or today, or 1,000 years from now. It’s how humans behave. A certain proportion of any population is always susceptible to being swayed by scare stories that can be blamed on others. It gets particularly salty when the scarers persuades the scarees that it is all an evil and cunning conspiracy that is behind the scare stories. People, particularly weak people, love to blame their troubles in life on others.
It appears ‘intellectuals” are ALWAYS wrong. It takes someone very highly “educated” and thus, far away from having “common sense” to believe all the things LIBERALS believe.
So either highly educated and thus the common sense eliminated, or just plain ignorant, the core of the Democrat (in the US) or labor (in the UK) parties, and their equivalent around the rest of the world.
I notice that I have seen NOTHING about Argentina since the libertarian president was elected. SO things must be going pretty well, since if there were any problems the MSM would be reporting on the failure of the “extreme right’.
Logan’s Run?
Escape From New York
I do not believe this to be accurate. There have been many demographers reporting for years about ageing population and falling fertility rates. For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyzBoHo5EI
It is well known that educating women is the most effective means of limiting fertility rate.
“today’s families are having fewer children”
This is wrong. There has been no change in the size of families with children, what has changed in the last few decades is that more people are deciding not to have any children.
Nearly the entire west has fallen below replacement rates for births. The insane and evil mass movement of people across borders is not going to yield any net positives for the countries being invaded.
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/india-population/
WND has always been an unreliable source and this article starts with a BIG LIE
“population is now rapidly declining in most of the world.”
This is total BS
The author is clueless
Here is the “best” paragraph for declining populations, that slightly affect only 2 nations out of 195. And if they would allow more immigrants, Japan and China would not have any decline.
Japan’s population is currently (2022–2026) declining at the rate of 0.5% per year, and China, whose population has peaked and is currently (2022 – 2026) declining at the rate of about 0.04%. By 2050, Europe’s population is projected to be declining at the rate of 0.3% per year.
Population if falling if you don’t count immigrants?
Immigrants are part of the population of a nation, why would you not count them?
Every prediction of environmental doom in history has been wrong
Climate change is merely a prediction of global warming doom
It is very important to point out that every prior prediction of environmental doom was wrong. Especially that every prediction of climate doom has been wrong since 1979
Trying to refute leftist predictions of CAGW by using just ONE past wrong prediction, NOT RELATED to climate (overpopulation prediction) is a weak argument. Not worthy for one of six articles here in a day. Maybe good enough for WND. Not good enough for WUWT.
Can we now add underpopulation to the long list of predictions of environmental doom that never happened? We’ll have Japan as our “poster boy” and ignore the other 194 nations.
You’re right, global population is not declining. It’s growth rate seems to be slowing and population is on a trajectory to peak in a few decades.
As you point out, Gorham basically disregards immigration. To me, unfettered immigration is detrimental to Western civilization. Allowing it is another attack on the rule of law.
” … a trajectory to peak in a few decades.”
One estimate claims this will happen about 2085. So, “few” = 6
I’d like to stick around to see how things shake-out, but my
estimated check-out date is well before that.
Most estimates are closer to 2050.
Birth rate might drop below replacement level by 2040, population will continue to rise for about 30 years after that. {war might change these things}
I have been writing about this for a while ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09BCGLTVV )
after reading others’ writings ( https://alephblog.com/2011/01/29/on-human-fertility/ ).
Economic Production = p x N, where p=productivity and N=Number of producers.
There will be ramifications from decreasing N.
With respect to Carbon Dioxide, eventually ( and I’d expect soon ),
falling working age population will mean decreasing emissions globally:
“Economic Production = p x N, where p=productivity and N=Number of producers.’
There will be ramifications from decreasing N.”
There will be fewer baby diapers produced and more adult diapers produced.
I have read claims that a declining population will be an economic catastrophe. That is a myth
There will be fewer babies and children to be supported
There will be more elderly people to be supported. But many elderly people are capable of some productive work. Maybe part time. Maybe working from home. They are more productive than babies and children
The only potential problem is not enough doctors for the older population if the obesity and cancer trends continue rising. Especially in nations with socialized medicine.
There is no evidence of economic problems in Japan from their declining population.
=========
Global CO2 emissions per year have been rising.
Why are you predicting a declining trend “soon” when the trend has not even stopped rising.
Seems like another prediction will bite the dust.
You didn’t seem to base your claim on Nut Zero which has a lot of money and labor hours as inputs, but almost no outputs (tiny effect on the percentage of hydrocarbon fuels used for global primary energy).
Countries with homogonous populations will be able to handle a declining population. It is countries, like the US, that have been Balkanized intentionally, that will have problems.
So the Nordic countries, etc. will be OK as long as they stop the ignorant excessive immigration policies before it is too late.
” falling working age population ”
“Work” is a difficult thing to grasp. Consider something as simple as grape harvesting. In the early 1960s, grapes were harvested by hand. [see history of Cesar Chaves and Larry Itliong] Many workers were required. At about the same time, Shaulis Nelson (Cornell U.) and colleagues were developing new training methods and mechanical grape harvesting and pruning. Similar changes have occurred with other crops.
Now, most grapes are harvested by machines. Watch:
STORY TIP x 2
The BBC has two interesting reports: Note: A23a is a large ice island
A23a: Tracking the world’s biggest iceberg as it drifts towards oblivion
{Good text and great photos and drawings}
Sydney floods: Warnings of further deluge as major dam spills
{A standard text account}
The European region is swelling with immigrants from Africa and majority Arab countries. Those groups have a much higher birthrate than historic European populations. Europe will be almost entirely Islamic in a few more generations.
When women realize that their children will survive to adulthood they have fewer of them, so it takes a couple of generations.
The left really hates anything that is unplanned and not controlled by government.
That’s why leftists want people to be dependent on government make work programs. One must ask themselves how many checkmarks on paper forms that used to be stored in file cabinets, but now are digitized in data centers are actually necessary.
One of my professors claimed his wife worked with Ehrlich, I don’t know if she did or not. I told him, well that’s unfortunate.
In 1983, as a young professional Engineer with one of the largest fertilizer companies on the planet, my group was treated to a one-on-us meeting in the office of the COO. Not as a wise-guy, I asked how they could justify shipping product below cost (the market was down) to developing nations. He wasn’t prepared for the question, and I went on: “It is a fact that improving the standard of living of people in poor countries reduces their need to have kids just for social security in old age, and in general reduces average family size.” Today, with our prospective, we would say that, when rich enough, they will recognize that large families reduce their personal standard of living and being loved by two to three healthy, loving kids is ENOUGH!
Possible Reasons for Fewer Children
US Housewives
Between 1950 and 2024 the proportion of wives with paid jobs rose from 23% to 61% in 2023
Tax rates are higher than 30 to 50 years ago so fewer couples can afford a stay at home mther and need or at least want two incomes. High inflation has the same effect if wages don’t keep up with inflation.
Birth control pills made no children couples much easier to accomplish.
We also don’t have a lot of Catholic families having bushels of kids anymore. Catholics priests oppose all birth control but 98% of Catholics don’t listen to the official “rules”
People tend marry and start families later in life … but that may be offset by more single mothers
A single mother with one child who works outside the home may be reluctant to have a second child out of wedlock, and three children out of wedlock would certainly be a lot of work. That may be offset by welfare laws rewarding single mothers for staying single and having more children.
.
Of course the self-annointed “elites” are wrong… they always are.
There is NO climate crisis… and certainly none due to CO2 in the atmosphere… science tells us that CO2 is NOT a climate change force, nor has it ever been one. It is insensitive to most of Earth’s radiated IR, thus making the silly UN-IPCC model moot.
Either the UN-IPCC is too scientifically illiterate to understand their “models” are junk science, or they do know and are deceitful morons trying to destroy economies around the globe.
Climate change is more likely a cause of greater atmospheric CO2 than the reverse. Why? Because oceans are a vast source of CO2 and warmer oceans emit relatively more CO2 than colder oceans. Warm the oceans and the atmosphere will receive more CO2 emissions.
The historical data show no correlation between atmospheric CO2 and climate… except for limited nippets of time when there have been serendipitous apparent correlations.
Look at the data since 1880. Not unti the latter part of the 20th century was there any appearance of correlation.
Because there isn’t one. No correlation means no causation is possible.
“population is now rapidly declining in most of the world.” No, it is not. Population growth is declining rapidly. The number of countries with actually declining populations is small. It will grow over the next decades (absent some major change in conditions) but global population is projected to keep growing until 2080-2100 (UN) or 2050 (IMHE, the most aggressive decline). It is important not to confuse levels with rates. The same is true of inflation.
DId you see the list of countries above with falling populations? It included all of the big countries. The only continent that still has an increasing population is Africa, and not every country in Africa is still growing.
I just checked for Argentina, Brazil, and the USA. Some might consider these “big countries.” Population is growing in these three — and will continue for many years.
Some consider South America to be a continent — growing.
North America — growing.
I now need to put more wood in the stove. Someone else can check other places.
The good news is that some African countries are telling interfering westerners to shove off and stop trying to stop them developing and using fossil fuels. The high population rates of Africa can be blamed fairly and squarely on interfering greenie westerners (OK, OK, China has been hurting them too). The bad news is that only a few African countries have broken free.
Te sad part is that our rate of innovation will drop with a drop in population as there will be less creative people to solve man’s problems with disease, standard of living, well being.
If we’re experiencing a population drop, why has the planet’s population doubled during the past half century? And if it’s it’s really dropping, should the climate alarmists be pleased because they’re the ones always babbling about the planet’s overburdened resources because of too many people?
Pop. is not dropping; see rate of growth.
“The age of overpopulation is over. The age of underpopulation is here”
Not yet, by a long shot. And getting there is a race running the gauntlet between war, famine, and insanity.
Perhaps the OP has forgotten the transportation issues of the pseudo-pandemic. Far worse things are waiting in the wings.
Our global just-in-time distribution system for essentials like food, heating and engine fuel, and spare parts and materials for maintaining transportation and communications equipment is feebly hanging together by a hair.
How many days could cities like New York, London, Paris, Beijing, Moscow, LA, Toronto, Montreal, etc. last without water, food, or fuel? No one talks or writes publicly about this. Only the Swiss claim to have three years’ supply of water, food, fuel and medicine stockpiled for their population, and I assume that they’re counting on a much reduced population to start with.
We’re possibly one major CME away from total disruption of local and international communications and transportation. If it happens in North America during winter, it could mean mean months of starving and freezing in the dark.
That’s when you’ll find out whether we’re overpopulated or not.
We’re not over populated. Not by a long shot.
The world is not hanging on by a thread, even things like the global distribution network are a lot more robust than you want to believe.
Goreham ==> And Africa? Populations are skyrocketing in Africa in nearly every country. It will get better as these countries economies improve, but they will have to go through the cycle that India/Pakistan are still in the later stages of — a growing economy improving life for the poorest, which lowers birth rates.
Africa is not out of the overpopulation woods yet.
The thing that wasn’t mentioned was abortion. Africa is the only continent where the birth rate is above the fertility rate. Not surprisingly, the UN and its associated organisations, Planned Parenthood, and the liberal elites (eg. Bill Gates) are trying their hardest to force the African countries to legalise abortion.
For the Eugenic Green Meanies: a global immigrant gig labor market, mass immigration, sub-replacement birth rates and a smart phone in every hand is a depopulation dream come true.
Those of us living the the East Coast Megalopolis (Boston to North Carolina Tri-city) don’t readily grasp the sub-replacement level birth rate due to the massive migration to the coasts that occurred from farm to city that began in the 1970’s paired with immigration anarchy that began in the 1980’s and the massive growth of the Federal Government and it’s associated industries from Virginia to NYC.
But go to the old farm communities in the Midwest-Iowa, Kansas Nebraska, south Indiana and Illinois, Ohio, Arkansas etc….. and entire communities have disappeared.
Immigration may not solve the depopulation problem in the US. The birthrate of immigrants falls to the US sub-replacement average and the rate of immigration will not likely fill the replacement gap.
This is especially true for Japan, South Korea, and China.
The growing demand for immigrant/foreign labor will continue as immigrants from regions that exceed replacement birthrate. This means that eventually even the regions of the world that are at birth rates exceeding the replacement level will see a decline and global depopulation may accelerate.
Around the world where digitally enhanced consumerization and secularization has take hold, there has been a decline in the birth rates regardless of affluence. Most people in Russia are not affluent by any stretch. Historically, affluence and a deep sense of hope meant increased birth rates so something else is operating now. But with Africa and many Central Asia, Israel and Islamic countries…. the dynamic driving sub-replacement level birth rates is not operating.
Could this be the reason the WEF isn’t pushing for economic development in Africa and Central Asia? Affluence may grow birth rates in those regions… not suppress them. I think this is a reasonable question.
The massive rise of Internet/scrolling/app/Device addiction, especially in Asian Countries were the problem is accepted and an urgent concern, the birth rates have plummeted. In the USA where 40% young adults under 35 self-report an addiction to tech (10 hours or more a day), a further plummeting of the birth rate is not far off. 2024 USA fertility rate is 1.64. In 5 years or less we plummet to Japan’s current rate of 1.30.
We know that the misery index for tech addiction is very high : lack of insight, lack of hope, anxiety, depression, social isolation, broken relationships and marriages, unemployment and underemployment, a sense of foreshortened future ( a cognitive twist that enables a rationalization for the addiction), and an almost default decision not to marry or have children are the paramount consequences. In addition, there is a growing phenomenon of young people under age 35 with an obsessive concern for medical illness (Barnum-Effect causing false self-diagnosis related to social media use) and is driving young adults to doctors and medical centers in appalling numbers.
In a country as affluent as the US; where did our hope and vitality go?. Quick answer, it entered through the little window in we all carry with us and fled to nowhere and to no one.