Governments Are Having A Hissy Fit Over It

The world’s population is not collapsing and is expected to continue growing for at least another 60 years. Credit: Shutterstock.

By Joseph Chamie
PORTLAND, US, Feb 26 2025 – Yeah, governments are having a hissy fit over it. And their hissy fit is not over the usual concerns of governments such as defense, the economy, trade, inflation, unemployment, crime, or terrorism.

Governments are having a hissy fit over a single demographic issue. And that demographic issue is not about deaths, disease, life expectancy, urbanization, immigration, density or ageing.

Their hissy fit is simply over one thing. And that one thing is low birth rates.

Dominating the news headlines, pushing aside reality and the facts, attempting to sway public opinion and aiming to increase reproductive behavior, especially of young women, doomsday predictions about the consequences of low birth rates for humanity’s survival are being promoted.

World population now stands at a record high of 8.2 billion people and is continuing to increase, now adding approximately 70 million annually. That record high of 8.2 billion is double the world population of fifty years ago and quadruple the world population of a hundred years ago

Those erroneous predictions include that world population will collapse, humanity is headed toward near extinction, human civilization is dying out and homo sapiens will soon disappear off the face of the planet.

In actual fact, and contrary to their doomsday predictions, the world’s population is not collapsing and is expected to continue growing for at least another 60 years.

For most of human history, the growth of the world’s population was relatively slow and close to stable due to high rates of both births and deaths. The one billion world population mark wasn’t reached until 1804.

In contrast to the past, the 20th century, especially the second half, was an exceptional period of rapid world population growth. In the early 1960s, for example, world population’s annual growth rate reached a high of 2.3 percent and world population more than doubled in size during the second half of the 20th century. Moreover, the world’s population increased from 2 billion to 8 billion in slightly less than one hundred years.

World population now stands at a record high of 8.2 billion people and is continuing to increase, now adding approximately 70 million annually. That record high of 8.2 billion is double the world population of fifty years ago and quadruple the world population of a hundred years ago.

Moreover, according to international demographic projections, world population is expected to reach 9 billion by the year 2037, 10 billion by 2060 and 10.2 billion by the close of the 21st century.

So, homo sapiens are NOT expected to disappear from the face of the planet, as the doomsayers are repeatedly proclaiming.

Yes, it is certainly the case that many countries are experiencing fertility rates that are below the replacement level of about two births per woman. Those countries include both developed and developing countries across most regions of the world (Figure 1).

 

 

As a result of sustained rates of below replacement fertility, the populations of many of those countries have peaked and are facing demographic decline and population ageing accompanied by substantial increases in the share of elderly people in their populations.

As countries wish to avoid demographic decline as well as rapid population ageing, governments are attempting to reverse their low fertility levels.

Those governments are actively promoting various pro-natalist policies, programs and incentives aimed at returning to the relatively high fertility rates of the past or at least returning to replacement level fertility rates.

Are those pronatalist policies, programs and incentives likely to be successful in raising fertility rates back to the replacement level of about two births per woman?

The simple answer to that important question is: no, not likely to be successful.

Most international population projections do not foresee a return to replacement level fertility rates for the foreseeable future. By the year 2050, for example, the current low fertility rates of countries are expected to remain well below the replacement level.

Why are the fertility rates of many countries below the replacement level? A host of societal factors and individual reasons contribute to pushing fertility rates well below the replacement level (Table 1).

 

 

Among those factors and reasons are lower rates of child mortality, urbanization, industrialization, women’s labor force participation, access to modern contraceptives, increased higher education, child care costs, lifestyle changes, changing role and status of women and men, difficulties finding a suitable partner, work and family life balance, delayed marriage and childbearing, greater investments and costs in raising a child.

At the same time that many countries are experiencing below replacement fertility, many other countries, primarily developing countries in Africa and Asia, have relatively high fertility rates (Figure 2).

 

 

As a result of those relatively high fertility rates, the populations of those countries are expected to experience rapid population growth during the 21st century.

However, those African and Asian countries are also expected to experience declines in their fertility levels over the coming decades. By 2050, for example, most of those countries are projected to experience substantial declines in their current relatively high fertility levels, which will result in slower rates of population growth.

And the reasons for those expected future declines in today’s high fertility levels are the same that produced the current below replacement fertility rates in other countries, namely, those various societal factors and individual reasons that were enumerated above.

In sum, several generalizations are warranted.

First, despite the hissy fit that many governments are having about their low birth rates and their various pro-natalist policies, programs and incentives, their fertility rates are not expected to return to the replacement level in the foreseeable future.

For a host of reasons, the fertility rates of many countries are expected to remain below the replacement level of two births per woman for most of the 21st century. And as a result of those low rates, some of those countries are facing population decline and rapid demographic ageing.

Second, the current high fertility rates of many developing countries in Africa and Asia are expected to decline over the coming decades. As a result of those fertility declines, the population growth rates of those countries are expected to slow down.

Third, and importantly, contrary to those misleading doomsday predictions, the world’s population is not collapsing nor is human civilization dying out. In fact, the world’s current population of 8.2 billion is continuing to increase. World population is expected to reach 9 billion by 2037, 10 billion by 2060 and to peak at around 10.2 billion people in the mid-2080s.

Joseph Chamie is a consulting demographer, a former director of the United Nations Population Division and author of numerous publications on population issues, including his recent book, “Population Levels, Trends, and Differentials”.