A rapidly aging world – and the awaiting demographic implosion

The population is declining in more than 60 countries, in many cases dramatically. Families with one or no children are becoming increasingly common. The proportion of the elderly is increasing, while the proportion of the working-age population is shrinking. In China and Japan, the market for diapers for the elderly is already larger than for babies.

The challenges are global, with far-reaching consequences. British demographer Paul Morland paints a dire picture in his new book, No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children (2024). He describes an impending population collapse and argues that “nothing is more important for humanity’s future” than recognizing what is happening, “understanding its material and ideological causes, and figuring out what we can do if we want humanity to thrive — or even to continue existing.”

“Development,” in the broadest sense, has led people in many countries to want to have fewer children, and this has happened without population policies like China’s brutal “one-child policy,” introduced by Deng Xiaoping in 1980. South Korea is the most dramatic example today. Just a few months ago, the South Korean government announced that the birth rate had fallen to 0.7 — the lowest in the world and only one-third of what is needed for demographic stability. The country’s population is now projected to drop from just over 50 million to 27 million by the end of the century. By 2036, South Korea is expected to have twice as many people over 65 as under 18. Despite huge economic incentives, which have so far proven ineffective, South Korean women, on average, have their first child at 33.6 years of age.

A dramatic paradigm shift

The world has undergone a dramatic paradigm shift. In the late 1960s, there was growing concern over an unsustainable “population explosion,” and shocking population control measures were advocated by leading scholars like Kenneth Boulding and Paul Ehrlich. Gunnar Myrdal’s Asian Drama: An Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations (1968) fitted well into that dystopian tradition. But the development took a different turn. Over the past half-century, the global population has instead doubled to the current 8.2 billion. Medical advances not least mass vaccinations, and the “Green Revolution,” based on plant breeding and new farming techniques, are important reasons for the greater optimism that emerged in the 1970s. According to the UN’s median projections, the current upward trend is expected to level off at 10.3 billion by 2080.

Declining birth rates and aging populations

Despite this dramatic population growth, there is a growing consensus today that it is the declining birth rates and aging populations that pose the greatest long-term challenge. All of East Asia is facing a dramatic demographic transformation. Japan was the first example of a sustained population decline. The country’s population has been shrinking since 2010 and is projected to fall from the current 123 million to less than 70 million by 2100. This development is an example of “hyper-aging,” with profound implications for society as a whole.

China and India, which together account for more than a third of the world’s population, dramatically illustrate the impact that different development paths policy can have. Both nations have populations of around 1.4 billion — China is in a steep decline, while India is still growing, albeit at a slowing pace.

A significant part of the explanation lies, to quote Susan Greenhalgh and Edwin A. Winckler (Governing China’s Population, 2005), in China’s “Leninist Biopolitics.” As a result, the country is today experiencing an increasingly dramatic backlash. Despite the Communist Party’s urgings, even fewer children are being born today — just 1.2 children per woman — than during the one-child policy era. Party members, approaching 100 million, scoff at party mandates, telling them that it now is their” patriotic duty” to have three children. The consequences are far-reaching, with the country’s population, according to the UN’s median projections, expected to fall from the current 1.4 billion to well below one billion — possibly as low as 800 million — by the end of the century.

Meanwhile, India, with its still relatively young population, is expected to grow from the current 1.4 billion to 1.7 billion before stabilizing and beginning to decline by the turn of the century. As the population ages and the number of children per woman continues to decline, the country’s population growth is slowing. By 2050, the birth rate is expected to have fallen to 1.3 children per woman, with significant long-term implications for population size and aging.

Africa is the major exception. While birth rates are declining there as well, death rates, especially in early childhood, have fallen much faster, and according to the UN’s median projections the continent’s population is expected to grow from today’s 1.5 billion to nearly 4 billion by the turn of the century, before the trend reverses. The entire global population increase during this period can be attributed to the more than doubling of Africa’s, exceptionally young, population. The continent’s development prospects are becoming of greater global concern than ever.

In Europe, the trend is the opposite. Europe faces significant and growing challenges with low and declining birth rates and a rapidly aging population. Europe’s population is expected to shrink from today’s 740 million to 590 million by the turn of the century. If this happens, Europe’s already low share of the global population will fall from today’s 9% to less than 6%.

An urgent need for a radical rethinking

Radical rethinking is required, driven by economic realities. It is evident that better conditions for education and active lives beyond current retirement ages and prevailing notions of the life cycle are needed. No pension system in the world is equipped for what lies ahead. President Macron’s recent failed efforts to significantly increase the French retirement age illustrate the challenges. China’s first decision since 1978 to gradually increase retirement ages, currently at just 50 years for female blue-collar workers, has been met with strong popular reactions and frustration.

Significantly increased labor migration will be essential for aging societies, and not least for Europe, to function. Closed borders only exacerbate the problem. While there is no shortage of young people in the world — Africa’s median age is 19 — the trend of declining birth rates in more and more countries must be reversed. No developed country offers a successful model for this.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the challenges, which are, in large part, the result of great progress during recent decades — most notably as regards global life expectancy. Today, it is 73 years, more than 20 years higher than in 1960. The gap is wide between Japan, where life expectancy is 88 years for women and 82 for men, and Chad (55/53). However, even in the world’s poorest countries, there have been significant improvements. At the time of Bangladesh’s independence (1971), life expectancy there was about 40 years. Today, it is 73, higher than in some parts of the US.

This progress is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. At the same time, even though the global population will grow by another two billion before a turning point likely occurs, the world now faces a demographic implosion. According to Morland, nothing less than a cultural revolution is required, and he explores what governments, civil society, religion, role models, and individuals can achieve. In his worst-case scenario, the global population would shrink by several billion. The reasons behind the decline are certainly complex, ranging from economic development, urbanization, housing costs, the costs of children’s education, culture, gender roles, lifestyle, and outlook, with climate change casting a mounting shadow. It boils down to what is valued in actual life.

While demographic trends have an inherent momentum that should not be underestimated, they are still not predetermined. They can be influenced. In every society, there are opportunities for improvement in the basic conditions for family, childcare, and working life. The questions far outnumber the answers. There is an urgent need for deeper debate and research.