Population Collapse: Should We Be Alarmed?
Twentieth Edition
Gm friends,
For my twentieth article, I wanted to tackle something important. Thus, I’ve started thinking about the world’s most alarming issues. The list I came up with is extensive: climate change, gender inequality, AI domination, food & water scarcity, income inequality, corruption, disinformation, authoritarianism, healthcare & college education affordability, and many more.
One particular issue stood out from the others because it wasn’t as obvious — population collapse. Indeed, while I have been accustomed to thinking that we are facing an overpopulation issue, certain elites seem to believe the biggest threat facing the planet is people not having enough newborns.
Throughout this article, I'll attempt to present the two sides of the argument before arriving at my own conclusion about the topic. Let’s see how it goes.
More Babies, Please
In a world where social systems depend on the young supporting the old, forward thinkers such as Elon Musk and Jack Ma are starting to wonder what will happen as the population ages. For Elon, population collapse will represent a bigger risk to civilization than global warming in 20 years assuming a benevolent future with AI. Therefore, he frequently argues that we must increase our fertility rates to counter aging populations.
Looking at the numbers, more than half of the projected increase in global population until 2050 will be concentrated in just eight countries: Congo, Ethiopia, Egypt, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Tanzania. By that same year, the UN expects 61 countries to experience a 1% drop in population and the proportion of the global population over 65 to reach 16% —its highest level ever.
A long-term population decline could imply a potential pressure on the economy, as lower birth rates would lead to a smaller pool of young people entering the workforce. Coupled with an aging population, this could put a strain on resources. Moreover, population collapse could lead to tax and work burdens for the younger generation, as well as services and infrastructure downsizing (i.e. de-industrialization). We saw this phenomenon happen in the city of Detroit, where the economy crumbled as its population fell by two-thirds in less than 60 years. We’re also witnessing the early financial impacts of the population decline in Japan, the country with the highest proportion of elderly citizens in the world.
While we are used to hearing arguments that a declining population is actually a good thing to prevent climate change, this old belief from the 1970s turns out to be totally false. Rather, the economic structure appears to be more important than the raw population when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions.
Please Stick To Building Companies Elon
While the global pace of population growth is starting to slow, the world is hardly running the risk of having fewer people. Indeed, although some countries have declining populations as a result of below-replacement fertility (i.e. in the US, the fertility rate declined to 1.6 from 3.6 in 1950), the world's population is still growing and is likely to do so until the end of the century. What’s currently driving population growth is not higher birth rates, but longer life expectancy, which currently stands at 72.8 years globally. This number has increased by nine years since 1990 and is expected to reach 77.2 years by 2050 thanks to modern medicine (CNN).
By 2080, the world’s population is expected to peak at 10.4 billion (UN). Then there’s a 50% chance that the population will plateau or begin to decrease by 2100. Even the most pessimistic projections put the world population at around 8.8 billion by 2100 (Lancet). To push the analysis a step further, Samir KC, a demographer at the IIASA, has looked at what would happen if the world’s total fertility rate stayed below replacement levels for the next millennium. If that rate held at 1.84 babies per woman (i.e. UN’s estimate for 2100), the population would only fall from 10.4 billion in 2100 to 1.97 billion in 2500 and 227 million by 3000.
Moreover, a slowly shrinking population doesn’t necessarily spell an economic disaster. David Weil, an economist at Brown University, argues that with fewer very young people in a population, as well as older people having longer working lives, the ratio of workers to retirees will gradually start to even out, and countries with shrinking populations will benefit from innovation in countries that are growing. Demographers also seem to believe lower fertility and smaller populations should be celebrated rather than feared, as these are often tied to greater women's education, gender equality, and global living standards.
My Two Cents
Based on the data, I can’t agree with Elon on this one.
Rather than a population collapse, I only foresee a slowly declining population over many centuries. Moreover, I believe we’re heading toward a frontierless world. This phenomenon should dramatically decrease the importance of the issue, as it implies immigration support from growing countries toward developed countries with shrinking populations.
As always, I hope you learned something new.
Before wrapping up, I have a special request for you guys. I’m looking for someone to co-write an article with me. If that’s something of interest, please reach out and we’ll figure out the specifics together. I want to turn this project into something collaborative, and I believe this to be the first milestone toward achieving that goal.
Best,
Benjamin