The reason for this is that birthrates are down everywhere. In Germany, the rate is 1.36, whereas 2.1 is what is required to sustain a population. Spain is at 1.48 and Italy 1.4. Even American, who depended on immigrants and their tendencies to have lots of babies have seen lower birth rates in those immigrants. The Pew Research Center found that immigrants fell from 102 per 1,000 women in 2007 to 87.8 per 1,000 in 2012, leaving this overall U.S. birthrate at only 64 per 1,000 women — statistics given by an article in Slate magazine — and that is not enough to sustain us.
Mexico dropped from 7.3 to 2.4, India from 6 to 2.5, Brazil from 6.15 to 1.9. The explanation given is explained under the term “demographic transition.”
“For hundreds of thousands of years,” says Warren Sanderson, professor of economics at Stony Brook University, “in order for humanity to survive things like epidemics and wars and famine, birthrates had to be very high.” When death rates decreased, we see “a shift between two very different long-run states: from high death rates and high birthrates to low death rates and low birthrates.” This predicts what we see now, that most the world — more than half — is producing lower than sustainable population. Along these lines, the world is likely to meet its apogee in 2070, and then start to shrink a little.
The writer of the Slate article follows some linear thinking into some silly conclusions that we might go extinct if we keep this up, as if there wasn’t give and take on these matters, as if we should make a reverse-Malthusian conclusion. “If things continue at the rate they are going….” But they never do. The species and nature itself offers a system of checks and balances which should save us all from reverting to any draconian population control methods like China, and also, hopefully, keep us from creating any fertility factories.