• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Friday, July 11, 2025
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Environment

Why Global Population Decline Could Be Bad for Humankind

Amitrajeet A. Batabyal by Amitrajeet A. Batabyal
10/26/21
in Environment, Featured, Opinion
A couple wearing facemasks to prevent the spread of coronavirus watch the sunset from Elysian Park in Los Angeles, California, last month.

A couple with facemasks watch the sunset in Los Angeles, California. Photo: Apu Gomes/AFP/Getty Images

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

There is a well-established tradition in the social sciences and, more generally, in the popular media to worry about the harmful impacts of excessive population growth.

In the post-World War II era, this tradition was perhaps best exemplified by the work of the biologist Paul R. Ehrlich. He erroneously argued that in the 1970s “hundreds of millions of people” would starve to death despite “any crash programs embarked upon” at the time.

The fact that Professor Ehrlich was wrong in his apparent eschatological zeal did not bother many observers who went on to worry about the demands that excessive population growth would place on our seemingly finite natural resources.

There is no doubt that a growing population comes with environmental challenges. However, a critical issue that the world appears to be confronting today is the opposite of what concerned Professor Ehrlich and many other doomsayers: a declining global population.

Little Studied Problem

Demographers indicate that to maintain a constant population, we need to have a total fertility rate of 2.1. Now, the United Nation’s World Population Prospects 2019 shows the fertility rate is 1.8 in the United States, 1.7 in China, 1.6 in Germany, 1.4 in Japan, and 1.3 in Italy and Spain.

These numbers indicate that the total fertility rate in many of the world’s high and middle-income nations is already consistent with negative long-run population growth. Simply put, women have fewer than two children throughout much of the developed world.

China to announce its first population decline since 1949https://t.co/fFOqIHD0QZ

China's central bank says the country's total fertility rate is below 1.5 children per woman, lower than the official estimate of 1.8. pic.twitter.com/XV42BiOQdk

— Conrad Hackett (@conradhackett) April 27, 2021

In addition, almost half of the world’s population now lives in countries with fertility rates below 2.1. The clear implication is that instead of worrying about excessive population growth, we ought to be worrying about global shrinkage.

Ideas Matter

Research on economic growth sheds light on what implications this shrinkage might have on humans in the future. In the long run, all the positive impacts of a declining population may be offset by the diminution in humankind’s creative abilities.

To see why, note that ideas take center stage in driving modern economic growth, and humans are the source of new ideas. Therefore, our future well-being depends fundamentally on long-run population trends.

New ideas permit a nation’s economy to do more with less or to create novel tasks to keep labor and capital, the two most important factors of production, occupied. The resulting technological progress has led to steady growth in real income per person over the last 200 years, even though the world’s population has grown over this same time.

Two Potential Scenarios

It is possible to increase the flow of new ideas by investing more in education to improve the stock of human capital and by getting more humans to work in research and development (R&D) rather than in production.

Even though these methods generated new knowledge in the 20th century, these methods themselves are subject to diminishing returns, meaning that as the proportion of the population working in R&D rises, the productivity of each incremental researcher declines.

Therefore, a reduction in the absolute number of humans (and their brainpower) may negatively impact innovation, which may certainly reduce the likelihood of sustained growth in incomes.

As such, the world is likely to be confronted with two possible futures.

In the upbeat “expanding cosmos” scenario, total fertility settles at a sufficiently high level and thus the stock of knowledge, population, and incomes all trend upwards. In contrast, in the gloomy “empty planet” scenario, a falling population leads to fewer new ideas, living standards deteriorate, and the world’s population eventually vanishes.

What We Should Be Thinking About

The bleak “empty planet” scenario might not materialize because computing advances increase the productivity of R&D or because discoveries ultimately reduce the mortality rate to zero, thereby permitting the population to grow despite low fertility.

However, the ultimate point is that a shrinking global population may hurt us in ways that we typically pay little attention to. Therefore, we need to alter this undesirable state of affairs.

ShareTweet
Amitrajeet A. Batabyal

Amitrajeet A. Batabyal

Arthur J. Gosnell Professor of Economics at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Batabyal has published over 600 papers, books, book chapters, and book reviews

Related Posts

Women in Afghanistan wearing a blue burqa
Featured

ICC Seeks Arrest of Taliban Leaders Over Persecution of Women

by Staff Writer with AFP
July 9, 2025
Kenya, Nairobi, 2024-07-16. Protesters in the streets
Democracy at Risk

Nairobi Tense as Kenya Marks Democracy Uprising

by Staff Writer with AFP
July 7, 2025
President Donald Trump
Featured

Trump Wins ‘Phenomenal’ Victory as Congress Passes Flagship Bill

by Staff Writer with AFP
July 4, 2025
University students march in protest towards the Istanbul Municipality in Sarachane as they demonstrate against the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 21, 2025.
World

‘Remember Charlie Hebdo!’ Protesters Seethe at Istanbul Magazine

by Staff Writer with AFP
July 2, 2025
US President Donald Trump
Featured

US Senate Edges Towards Vote on Trump’s Divisive Spending Bill

by Staff Writer with AFP
June 30, 2025
Protests in Hong Kong in 2019.
Democracy at Risk

Hong Kong’s Dragnet Widens 5 Years After National Security Law

by Staff Writer
June 27, 2025
Next Post
John Kerry

US Climate Envoy Kerry Says Islands Face 'Beyond Existential' Threat

Balarus' President Alexander Lukashenko

Belarusians Sue Lukashenko in Germany Over 'Crimes Against Humanity'

Recommended

Women in Afghanistan wearing a blue burqa

ICC Seeks Arrest of Taliban Leaders Over Persecution of Women

July 9, 2025
Kenya, Nairobi, 2024-07-16. Protesters in the streets

Nairobi Tense as Kenya Marks Democracy Uprising

July 7, 2025
President Donald Trump

Trump Wins ‘Phenomenal’ Victory as Congress Passes Flagship Bill

July 4, 2025
University students march in protest towards the Istanbul Municipality in Sarachane as they demonstrate against the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 21, 2025.

‘Remember Charlie Hebdo!’ Protesters Seethe at Istanbul Magazine

July 2, 2025
US President Donald Trump

US Senate Edges Towards Vote on Trump’s Divisive Spending Bill

June 30, 2025
Protests in Hong Kong in 2019.

Hong Kong’s Dragnet Widens 5 Years After National Security Law

June 27, 2025

Opinion

Donald Trump

Fact vs. Fiction: The Trump Administration’s Dubious War on Reverse Discrimination

June 18, 2025
Tens of thousands of protestors shut down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, April 5, 2025, protesting the Trump administration's abuse of the separation of federal powers as well as the deep cuts to governmental services overseen by presidential advisor Elon Musk.

Civil Society Is Holding the Line. Will Washington Notice?

June 17, 2025
A Black Lives Matter mural in New York City.

Fuhgeddaboudit! America’s Erasure of History

April 2, 2025
Bust of Deputy Rubens Paiva in the Chamber of Deputies

Democratic Brazilians Are Still Here

March 18, 2025
A woman from Guatemala

Dispatch From Central America

January 28, 2025
US President Donald Trump

Dear Trump Supporters: Is This the America You Wanted?

January 28, 2025
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post