CV NEWS FEED // Plummeting birth rates in countries around the world are predicted to lead to a global crisis by 2100, according to a recent article published in a medical journal.
The Lancet published a study on March 20 that showed that by 2100, over 97% of the world’s countries and territories are projected to have total fertility rates far below the 2.1 children per woman rate needed to maintain a stable population.
According to The Telegraph, the population decrease would be the most drastic since the Black Death bubonic plague pandemic in the mid-1300s.
“The new fertility forecasts underscore the enormous challenges to economic growth in many middle- and high-income countries with a dwindling workforce and the growing burden on health and social security systems of an aging population,” according to a news release from The Lancet.
While global birth rates are projected to become worryingly low—reaching a TFR of 1.8 by 2050 and roughly 1.6 by 2100—several African countries are predicted to drive population increases with their higher birth rates, resulting in a “demographically divided world,” according to the release. The researchers found that in 2021, about 29% of the world’s live births were in sub-Saharan Africa. By 2100, the same area is projected to contribute to over 54% of the world’s live births.
According to the study, this disparity of births will present serious problems for Africa and the rest of the world.
“We are facing staggering social change through the 21st century,” wrote senior author Professor Stein Emil Vollset from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “The world will be simultaneously tackling a ‘baby boom’ in some countries and a ‘baby bust’ in the others. As most of the world contends with the serious challenges to the economic growth of a shrinking workforce and how to care for and pay for aging populations, many of the most resource-limited countries in sub-Saharan Africa will be grappling with how to support the youngest, fastest-growing population on the planet in some of the most politically and economically unstable, heat-stressed, and health system-strained places on earth.”
The study also investigated the implications of global sustained low fertility.
“Unless governments identify unforeseen innovations or funding sources that address the challenges of population ageing, this demographic shift will put increasing pressure on national health insurance, social security programmes, and health-care infrastructure,” the researchers reported. “These same programmes will receive less funding as working-age, tax-paying populations decline, further exacerbating the problem.”
The researchers noted that policies or strategies to encourage women to have more children have been largely unsuccessful. In the future, they will likely continue to fail to boost fertility rates enough to maintain a stable population.
“It will be important for low-fertility countries to implement a combination of policies that support those who wish to have children and offer additional benefits to society such as better quality of life and greater participation of women in the workforce, alongside open immigration policies,” the release said.
