With older people outnumbering younger ones, declining global populations could have a significant impact - but there is a solution

“To them that hath shall (more) be given” is generally a reliable guide, especially in economic matters, but it doesn’t work if the beneficiaries are too stupid to take advantage of the gift.

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The scarce and precious commodity in this case is people, who are in increasingly short supply.

The global average birth rate has halved since 1960 and is now just above the ‘replacement’ rate of 2.1 children per woman. However, that is misleading, as averages often are. Only sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East still have the old, high birth rates. Everywhere else, there is a rising panic about a future where the old will outnumber the young.

In the Americas, Europe, Oceania, and above all in Asia, birth rates have fallen at an astonishing rate. The limiting case is South Korea, where the current population of 51 million will halve within 50 years if the current average of only 0.7 children per woman persists.

There is no good reason to believe it will recover, since other East Asian countries are facing only slightly less steep declines in the birth........

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