A World With Fewer People

More than two centuries ago, Thomas Robert Malthus, scholar, economist and Anglican cleric, worried that the human tendency towards a virtuous attachment is so strong that there is a constant effort towards an increase in population, ahead of the rate of increase in subsistence. This would inevitably precipitate the Malthusian trap through positive checks like hunger, disease and war, and preventive checks like postponement of marriage and celibacy: “the discouragements to marriage, and the difficulty of rearing a family are so great, that population is at a stand,” Malthus wrote in his 1798 book An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Two hundred and twenty-seven years later in September this year, the latest Sample Registration System statistical report of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner showed that India’s crude birth rate (CBR), the number of annual live births per 1,000 people, declined by 1.6 points between 2018 and 2023.

The total fertility rate (TFR), the average number of children a woman will have in her lifetime, has also fallen by 0.3 points during the same period, to 1.9. For India’s population to remain stable and grow, the TFR must be 2.1 or above, so that a generation is replaced. For a country of India’s size and diversity, there are expectedly wide regional differences. In Bihar, for instance, the CBR and TFR are the highest at 25.8 and 2.8, respectively. All states reporting higher-than-replacement level TFR are in northern India — Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh. The lowest TFR is recorded in Delhi at 1.2. Eighteen states and union territories have TFRs below the replacement level, notably West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Maharashtra. Southern states have total fertility rates below 1.6, with Karnataka at 1.6 and Tamil Nadu at 1.4, matching or less than many European countries.

Demographic Transition
An inflection point has been reached, signifying a clear trend towards population decline and ageing. This declining trend will admittedly take several years to have an impact on the population. India's population is now expected to peak at 1.7 billion in 2065, before starting to decline. The UN has placed India in a group of middle-income countries undergoing rapid demographic change.

India should now prepare for a different future, while hastening all-out efforts to reap its demographic dividend. A silver nation will come with its own attendant needs — financial, reduced mobility, physical and mental healthcare facilities, and social support services — for which today’s young population must prepare to serve the needs of a growing population of the elderly. Kerala is already facing these issues, with its elderly population comparable to some European countries. 

A TFR of 1.8 births per woman leads to a slow, manageable population decline; but a rate of 1.6 or lower could trigger rapid, unmanageable decline. This is already happening in some countries, like South Korea which has declared a national emergency, and Greece which has warned about an "existential" population threat. Turkey’s TFR has fallen to 1.48. The total fertility rate in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, is just 0.91 children per woman, lower than in Tokyo. China’s population is already contracting. Mexico’s TFR stands at 1.6, about the same as the US. In 2024, France recorded fewer births than in 1806, when the population was less than half its current size. Italy registered its lowest count since unification in 1861. All over the world, fertility is in much sharper decline than most projections had expected.

A complex mix of economic insecurity and social change underpins this fertility decline. Financial constraints, job insecurity and housing unaffordability are the top reasons cited, especially in metropolitan areas. Health, well-being concerns and delayed marriages also play a significant role. Egg freezing and fertility preservation services are gaining acceptance among urban women in their 20s and 30s, reflecting a shift in reproductive planning. Moreover, infertility is likely underreported due to social stigma. The UN also points to emerging social realities such as loneliness, shifting relationship patterns, social stigma, and gender norms that influence reproductive decisions.

According to Elon Musk, the father of many, the greatest potential risk to the future of civilisation is population collapse. A shrinking population will have profound consequences. It will turn expectations about everything from housing to greenhouse gas emissions upside down. A contracting labour force and dwindling number of consumers will force a repricing of many goods, services and assets. Governments will need to rethink how they fund pensions and healthcare, and work out how to shrink cities and towns neatly. If the world’s population declines indefinitely, humanity will eventually disappear.

Fertility rates have been dropping for centuries, mostly for benign reasons. What is striking and unexpected is that the decline is accelerating, doubling between the 2000s and 2010s, and doubling again during the current decade. The Economist notes that the UN had thought Thai women would record a TFR of 1.2 in 2024. The actual figure was just one. In Colombia, it expected a TFR of 1.63, but it plunged to 1.2 births per woman in 2023. Fewer than 2 million babies were born in Egypt in 2024, a threshold it was not expected to cross before 2100. Africa still produces many more babies than the global norm, but it is no exception to the rule of faster declines than expected.

Hence, the world’s population is now likely to peak much earlier than predictions suggested. Rather than climbing until 2084 as the UN expected, it may stop growing in the 2050s and never exceed 9 billion. Thereafter, the world’s population will start to shrink, something it has not done since the 14th century, when the Black Death wiped out a fifth of humanity.

It is possible to imagine that fertility might recover, perhaps with continuing social progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment. If the harm to women’s careers and finances from having children is erased, fertility might rise, but this sounds like wishful thinking. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that fertility rates have further to fall in many countries, if India’s experience is any indication. Even in its northern states, where the fertility rate is still above 2.1, it has been falling.

“Go forth and multiply,” said God to Adam and Eve (Hawwa in Arabic; Chavah in Hebrew).

Their children are apparently not convinced.

So, they are destined to adapt to an emptier world.