When I was born near the Baby Boom’s peak, many people worried that the population was growing too fast. Today, the shoe is on the other foot. All over the world, birth rates have collapsed, and we face the prospect of a shrinking population. Over two-thirds of the world’s population lives in countries with birth rates below replacement, including India, China, the U.S., Brazil, and all of Europe. The United Nations projects that the global population will peak near the end of the century, but many demographers now expect that to occur much sooner — perhaps as early as 2050.
People who see the declining population as a good thing tend to ignore the difficulties it will create. Let’s begin with the fiscal havoc. The federal government continues to spend more than it taxes, causing its debt to spiral upward. A low birth rate means more retirees and fewer workers to support them — more people entitled to Social Security and Medicare, but fewer taxpayers — worsening the debt. Even if we were to rein in the debt, a shrinking, aging population means more non-working people wanting to buy things with their savings, but fewer people to produce them, causing rampant inflation. As Stanford economist Charles Jones puts it, declining population has profound implications: “Rather than continued exponential growth, living standards stagnate.” He’s not alone. In a recent survey, economists agreed — 58 to 42 percent — that the economic benefits of an expanding world population outweigh the economic costs.
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