Global fertility rates hit an historic tipping point and are unlikely to recover, experts say
The world population is expected to fall for the first time since the Black Death because of plummeting birth rates, a Lancet study has found.
The decline in the number of children women are having has started to slow the growth of the global population, which stands at just over eight billion, and could mean it starts to fall within decades.
It would be the first time that the number of people on the planet has decreased since the Black Death bubonic plague pandemic killed as many as 50 million people in the mid-1300s, including up to a third of the population in Europe.
That is the only time to date that the number of humans on the Earth has fallen, with historians estimating that the global population fell from around 400 million to 350 million.
Women are required to have 2.1 children each on average to maintain population growth, known as the “total fertility rate”, and as of 2021 it stood at 2.23 worldwide.
But experts say it is on a persistently downward trend, having fallen from 4.84 in 1950, and researchers predict it will decrease to 1.83 in 2050 and 1.59 by 2100.
It means that in 2050, 155 of 204 countries will have birth rates lower than required to sustain the population size.
By 2100, it will be 198 countries, or 97 per cent of the world by population, and countries in sub-saharan Africa will account for more than one in every two babies born.
In 13 countries, including South Korea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Bhutan, women will have less than one child each on average.
The UK, like other high-income countries, has a fertility rate lower than the average, at just 1.49 in 2021.
It has fallen from 2.19 in 1950 and will continue to decrease to 1.38 and 1.30 in the next 25 and 75 years, the researchers said.
It will mean the current population of around 67 million becomes increasingly unbalanced toward older generations before falling as the eldest people die, unless there is migration.
National fertility rates set to plummet
Number of births per woman
Britain’s falling birth rates are already playing out in real time, with recent data showing primary and secondary schools seeing fewer pupils apply for spaces that were once coveted.
And women are increasingly turning to egg freezing, which has recently been in the spotlight with health leaders calling on fertility clinics to make clearer the chances of success.
Last week, Miriam Cates, Tory MP, said women should not be leaving it so late to have children and were being “exploited” by the “false promise” that egg freezing would work.
Experts have said the implications of a falling population for society will be “immense” as the old outnumber the young and increase pressure on health services and the workforce.