Global Fertility Crisis 1 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1084

Global Fertility Crisis 1 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1084

Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1084 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here.

Credit: Daisy Laparra

Credit: Muqtada Mohsen

Preamble

During the last census, the digital census as it was called, Pakistan population was estimated at over 240 million. More importantly, population growth was found to be 2.5% across the country, while Balochistan had 3.5% population growth. These figures were presented as alarming because our country could not afford such high growth. Regional comparison put India at 1.7% and Bangladesh at 1.9%. However, in all these statistics, there was no calculation of average number of children per family, which also means how many children a woman shall have during her entire number of fertile years.

While population growth is alarming for the countries and the world at large, this is one side of the picture. An even more alarming situation is the falling birth rate which has gone down drastically low. 

In this post, and maybe another one, I am drawing material from a recent McKinsey report along with articles from various other sources. Links at the end.

The Declining Birth Rate

The 20th century began with population explosion. Middle classes were expanding. Health, housing and income were improving. Birth control was difficult to get and risky. In the US, the generation after second world war was called Baby Boomers, because the average family size was larger. 

The 21st century is a population tipping point. Financial inequality is on the rise. Health, housing, and food expenses have soared beyond affordability. And birth control is easily available. 

“There’s been an entirely unanticipated acceleration of the already existing long-term decline in global fertility, more or less everywhere,” says American Enterprise Institute political economist Nicholas Eberstadt. “It’s not impossible that the world has already fallen on a planetary scale below the level of child-bearing necessary for long-term population stability. “We can’t tell if that’s actually happened yet. But if this has not happened already, it may happen much sooner than people expected.”

The 14th century Bubonic plague was the worst pandemic in the human history. It killed off half the population of Europe and probably a third of the Middle East. But even when the plague was filling mass graves, the survivors kept having babies. Since the birth rate remained high, the global population recovered, though it took about a century. It may not happen this time because low marriage rates, urbanization, education, awareness, and easy access to birth control is pushing the birth rate downward.

The Problem

United Nations estimates that a growth rate of 2.1 children per family is required to replace the dying population, but all countries in the developed world and many in the developing world have a ratio much below the required number. The replacement rate of 2.1 children per family is not present in most countries where tw0-third population lives.

The story of collapsing demographic started in Luxembourg, the first country the United Nations recorded as having a fertility rate below replacement rate in 1950, when it started collecting data, but it rebounded somewhat later. 

Croatia and Serbia, both part of the former Yugoslavia, became the first countries where fertility permanently dropped below replacement rate in 1963 and 1968 respectively. Within a year, fertility rates in Denmark, Finland, and Luxembourg followed suit and had never had fertility rates equal to or above replacement since the.

Twenty years later, most countries in Advanced Asia, Europe, and North America had fallen below replacement threshold. China joined the club in 1991, Thailand in 1989, Mexica in 2015, and India in 2019. Sub-Saharan Africa is one region today where fertility rates remain high and are likely to stay above the replacement rate beyond next 25-30 years.

Following is the situation in various regions of the world, as recorded in 2023.

• North America 1.6

• Latin America/ Caribbean 1.8

• Western Europe 1.4

• Central and Eastern Europe 1.4

• Greater China 1.0

• Advanced Asia 1.1

• India 2.0

• Emerging Asia 2.5

• Middle East/ North Africa 2.4

• Sub-Saharan Africa 4.4

True, that life expectancy has increased almost everywhere. But greater longevity explains only 20 percent of the change in age profiles of population; falling fertility explains the rest 80 percent.

Let us take the example of Germany. From 1960 to 2021, 26 million fewer babies were born, a number equivalent to 31 percent of the German population at the end of that period than if the fertility rates had remained constant at the 1960 level. Seven millions more senior, or about 8 percent of the country’s population were alive at the end of the period due to increased life expectancy over the same period. Net-net, the country’s population was 23 percent smaller in 2021 than it would have been if both fertility and life expectancy rates remained constant; in real numbers, 19 million fewer people.

Japan is the only developed country where life expectancy had roughly the same impact as fertility. This unusual pattern was due to two factors. First, Japan already had a very low fertility rate even in 1960 – 1.98 compared with, for example, 2.7 in the United Kingdom. Second, life expectancy at 65 increased more in Japan than in other countries.

In emerging economies, fertility rates dropped even more dramatically from 1960 to 2023. For example, a woman had an average of 6.1 children in Brazil in 1960, whereas today, she has only 1.6 children.

Global life expectancy has extended by seven years on average since 1997, reaching 73 years in 2023 and set to hit 77 years by 2050.

Sum Up

Due to factors mentioned above, the world demographics are no more like pyramids where large younger population is at the base while small number of aged population is at the top. As Mckinsey puts it, it is more like an Obelisk, a rather irregular shaped structure due to uneven distribution of different ages.

We shall continue with the implications and challenges of the population shift.

To be Concluded…

Disclaimers: Pictures in these blogs are taken from free resources at Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash, and Google. Credit is given where available. If a copyright claim is lodged, we shall remove the picture with appropriate regrets.

For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intent to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, however, it happens unintentionally, I offer my sincere regrets.

Reference:

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-depopulation-confronting-the-consequences-of-a-new-demographic-reality?stcr=D5B28FF38E8F4D5EBDD1CCD3F16ECB14&cid=other-eml-ttn-mip-mck&hlkid=d2b91977dece479eb99d015b3946d535&hctky=15999472&hdpid=38ebfc19-3a67-45f6-a658-c360aa81421d

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/02/the-global-fertility-crisis-are-fewer-babies-a-good-or-a-bad-thing-experts-are-divided

https://www.news.com.au/world/below-the-replacement-rate-alarming-trend-sweeping-the-globe/news-story/12fc2a64ce97866907575469ecca3eec

https://nypost.com/2024/08/31/opinion/the-world-is-running-out-of-children/