The Age of Depopulation

01 Jun, 2025

Here¹ is a long-form article in Foreign Affairs about depopulation and its consequences for various nations. It is written by Nicholas Eberstadt of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. There is a paywall. This is a wide ranging article but I will excerpt some key sections below, with a particular focus on domestic and geopolitical considerations:

On the makeup of future societies:

Future labor forces will shrink around the world because of the spread of sub-replacement birthrates today. By 2040, national cohorts of people between the ages of 15 and 49 will decrease more or less everywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa. That group is already shrinking in the West and in East Asia. It is set to start dropping in Latin America by 2033 and will do so just a few years later in Southeast Asia (2034), India (2036), and Bangladesh (2043). By 2050, two-thirds of people around the world could see working-age populations (people between the ages of 20 and 64) diminish in their countries—a trend that stands to constrain economic potential in those countries in the absence of innovative adjustments and countermeasures.

A depopulating world will be an aging one. Across the globe, the march to low fertility, and now to super-low birthrates, is creating top-heavy population pyramids, in which the old begin to outnumber the young. Over the coming generation, aged societies will become the norm.

On South Korea in particular (I haven't highlighted Korea much here, but it is impossible to write a blog about demographics without discussing the Korean situation):

South Korea provides the most stunning vision of a depopulating society just a generation away. Current projections have suggested that South Korea will mark three deaths for every birth by 2050. In some UNPD projections, the median age in South Korea will approach 60. More than 40 percent of the country’s population will be senior citizens; more than one in six South Koreans will be over the age of 80. South Korea will have just a fifth as many babies in 2050 as it did in 1961. It will have barely 1.2 working-age people for every senior citizen.

Should South Korea’s current fertility trends persist, the country’s population will continue to decline by over three percent per year—crashing by 95 percent over the course of a century.

On industrial societies in general:

Depopulation will upend familiar social and economic rhythms. Societies will have to adjust their expectations to comport with the new realities of fewer workers, savers, taxpayers, renters, home buyers, entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors, and, eventually, consumers and voters. The pervasive graying of the population and protracted population decline will hobble economic growth and cripple social welfare systems in rich countries, threatening their very prospects for continued prosperity. Without sweeping changes in incentive structures, life-cycle earning and consumption patterns, and government policies for taxation and social expenditures, dwindling workforces, reduced savings and investment, unsustainable social outlays, and budget deficits are all in the cards for today’s developed countries.

Some predictions about the future. The family --

Just how depopulating societies will cope with this broad retreat of the family is by no means obvious. Perhaps others could step in to assume roles traditionally undertaken by blood relatives. But appeals to duty and sacrifice for those who are not kin may lack the strength of calls from within a family. Governments may try to fill the breach, but sad experience with a century and a half of social policy suggests that the state is a horrendously expensive substitute for the family—and not a very good one. Technological advances—robotics, artificial intelligence, human-like cyber-caregivers and cyber-“friends”—may eventually make some currently unfathomable contribution. But for now, that prospect belongs in the realm of science fiction, and even there, dystopia is far more likely than anything verging on utopia.

National pension programs:

In depopulating societies, today’s “pay-as-you-go” social programs for national pension and old-age health care will fail as the working population shrinks and the number of elderly claimants balloons. To adapt successfully to a depopulating world, states, businesses, and individuals will have to place a premium on responsibility and savings. ... As people live longer and remain healthy into their advanced years, they will retire later. Voluntary economic activity at ever-older ages will make lifelong learning imperative.

Regarding the United States:

Thanks in large measure to immigration, the United States is on track to account for a growing share of the rich world’s labor force, youth, and highly educated talent. Continuing inflows of skilled immigrants also give the country a great advantage. No other population on the planet is better placed to translate population potential into national power—and it looks as if that demographic edge will be at least as great in 2050.

And China:

China presents perhaps the biggest question mark when it comes to depopulation and a willingness to fight. Thanks to both the one-child policy that was ruthlessly enforced for decades and the unexpected baby bust since the program was suspended nearly ten years ago, China’s military will perforce be manned in large part by young people who were raised without siblings. A mass-casualty event would have devastating consequences for families across the country, bringing entire lineages to an end.

#China #Korea #USA #birthrate #economics