February 21, 2025 | Population Collapse is a Serious Threat

Population collapse will be a very important issue in many parts of the world in the near future. Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, the number of births is not sufficient to maintain the world’s population at 8 billion people.

The impact on the economy will be enormous and hard to imagine for those who grew up in a world of steady growth.

The birth rate per woman needs to be about 2.1 children to maintain the population and even higher than that in countries with poor health conditions.

One of the most populous areas, Southeast Asia, which includes China and Japan, are below that minimum threshold by a wide margin. According to Nicholas Eberstadt in an article in Foreign Affairs in October 2024.

“By 2023, fertility levels were 40 percent below replacement in Japan, over 50 percent below replacement in China, almost 60 percent below replacement in Taiwan, and an astonishing 65 percent below replacement in South Korea.”

Europe’s fertility rates have been below replacement levels for more than four decades or longer.

The United States is one of the few major developed countries with a growing population, as is Canada, but this is due to immigration. The fertility rate in the U.S. is relatively high compared to Europe but still below the minimum at 1.6 births per woman.

A major exception among large countries in in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria is destined to become one of the most populated countries in the world, with a birth rate of 5.01 births per woman in 2024. But even that elevated rate has been declining for several years. The projected population in Nigeria is 400 million by 2050, according to Macrotrends.

Elon Musk has been outspoken about population collapse. He said in 2022, “collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces, by far.” If the recent claim by Ashley St. Clair is true, Musk has now fathered at least thirteen children. He is doing his part to reverse the trend, but it won’t be enough.

Musk believes that prosperity is a key factor in the decline in birth rates.

Studies appear to back his claim, as people in developed countries are having more trouble with fertility.  According to a 2017 paper published in Oxford Academic, “temporal trends in sperm count…” there has been a “significant decline in sperm counts … driven by a 50-60% decline among men unselected by fertility from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.” These studies covered the period between 1973 and 2011.

Shanna Swan in 2021 published a book based on this research called “Count Down: How our Modern World is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race.”

This book focuses on the impact of chemicals that may affect impact sperm count.

Both explanations could be true, as more prosperous countries also use more chemicals.

Population collapse would have serious consequences for the developed world, in ways that are difficult to imagine.

Hilliard MacBeth

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Hilliard MacBeth February 21st, 2025

Posted In: Hilliard's Weekend Notebook

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