Nicholas Eberstadt and Patrick Norrick explore a challenge for the future of human flourishing.
Human beings are unique among living creatures in being able to alter their own fertility deliberately, imposing their own constantly changing choices and preferences on childbearing. We are now watching a revolutionary transformation of human birth choices play out around the world in a way that only science fiction writers could have imagined even a generation ago. Humanity is in the midst of a headlong global birth crash—a plunge underway all around the world, in rich and poor regions alike, very possibly presaging an indefinite global depopulation, with our “peak human” moment coming shockingly soon. For many decades, demographers assumed that the postwar drop in worldwide birth rates would lead to an eventual equilibrium, with childbearing converging in one region after another at a little over two births per woman, the level required for long-term replacement. No longer. Instead it is now apparent that are witnessing a spreading worldwide march into the terra incognita of prolonged sub-replacement fertility, with no hints yet of how far humanity’s birth rates will ultimately fall, or when—if ever—they will recover. …
… Our current global birth crash came in quietly, too—and its dimensions are already world-changing.
Consider what is happening in East Asia, the region at the vanguard of the global birth crash.
Back in 2010, East Asia’s total fertility rate was about the same as Europe’s then- 1.6 births per woman. That meant the region’s childbearing had already dropped very significantly, to about 25 percent below the level needed for long term population stability. But in the intervening years, births in East Asia have all but collapsed. By 2025, East Asia’s childbearing level averaged less than one birth per woman. …
… But East Asia has hardly cornered the market on jaw-dropping, super-low fertility. Far from it. As one spot on the map after another approaches, or crashes through, the one-birth-per-woman line, it becomes evident that East Asia is not an exception, but rather a leading indicator for the rest of humanity.
