It was about two years ago when the global downturn in fertility came onto my radar, falling out of my attempt to reconcile the disconnect between observed population trends that suggested a possible peak before 2050 and UN projections that put it in the 2080s (see initial post). As made clear in subsequent posts and a video, year after embarrassing year, UN projections kept failing to anticipate tanking fertility around the globe.

The trend really is astounding. Over two-thirds of humans on the planet live in countries whose fertility has fallen below replacement levels, and generally still heading downward. In a decade or so, when populations in affluent countries around the world have all peaked and started declining, we’ll realize that we can’t manufacture twenty-something-year-old humans who were never born so that they may pick up the reproductive torch. In this sense, the train has already left the station. Population decline is arriving soon at an affluent country near you. Indeed, it’s already started declining in dozens of countries like Japan, China, Italy, etc.

While these countries are currently buffered by engaging in a still-growing global market, as more join the club there will be nowhere left to hide: the affluent consumer-base will inevitably contract. Add to this an increasing ratio of elder-dependents to working-age people and economies will be circling the drain. Those who worship economic growth are sounding the alarm (e.g., Vance, Musk), justifiable in their panic insofar as money is what matters most. But to the extent that economies wreck ecologies, I’m rooting for the other team—and population decline sounds perfectly peachy, even if the adjustment will be rough.

I can’t tell you how many YouTube videos I’ve watched in an effort to better understand drivers behind these trends. This post was motivated by one such video that seemed worth sharing. The hypothesis involves smartphones, which I had heard before without it making much of an impression: one of many plausible “theories.” Then I saw the data.

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