The Great Depopulation – Global Birth Rates Drop Below Replacement Level in 2023

Global birth rates fell below replacement level worldwide in 2023 for the first time in human history.

Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, a University of Pennsylvania economist and demographer, highlights this unprecedented demographic shift that signals profound social and economic transformations across nearly every continent. This structural decline challenges traditional assumptions about population growth and its impacts.

Birth rates have dropped below the replacement fertility rate of 2.1 births per woman in almost all countries of North America, South America, Europe, and parts of Asia. The global fertility rate’s fall below replacement in 2023 defies prior United Nations projections, reflecting an accelerated decline. For example, South Korea saw actual births in 2023 fall far short of UN estimates, while Thailand’s fertility rate stands at 0.8, portending a drastic population decline over the next two centuries. Fernández-Villaverde warns that such trends could necessitate closing vast numbers of schools and hospitals due to shrinking populations. Immigration and advances in artificial intelligence are considered factors that might mitigate some societal challenges stemming from these declines.

World population is expected to peak around 2055 before entering sustained decline.

The Great Depopulation
By Derek Thompson, The Atlantic