Latest news with #populationcollapse
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Science
- Daily Mail
The American women who are making Elon Musk's doomsday prediction a reality
Elon Musk has warned for years that 'population collapse' is a bigger threat to civilization than climate change. Now, new research has suggested that American women may be quietly proving him right. The study looked at the fertility intentions of over 41,000 women aged 15 to 44, finding that 50 percent of them were uncertain if they would have children in the future, even though they desired to be a mother. Researchers found that economic pressures, social shifts, and emotional uncertainty are driving a growing disconnect. The data also showed that uncertainty about having children isn't the same for all, and younger women are experiencing the biggest changes. Women aged 15 to 29 became increasingly unsure not only about whether they would have children, but also how strongly they felt about wanting them. In contrast, women aged 30 to 44 showed relatively stable levels of certainty over time. The data was collected from 2002 through 2019, which the team speculated revealed why US birth rates have been on a steady decline since the 2007 Great Recession. The fertility rate has decreased by 21 percent between 2007 and 2024. Musk, the billionaire father of 14 children, has often pointed to declining fertility as a sign that modern societies are forgetting how to survive. He previously said that low birth rates mean few workers, increased debt, strained healthcare and pension systems, and total social unrest. The US fertility rate was stable at about 2.0 children per woman in the 1990s and early 2000s, reaching a peak of 2.12 in 2007, statistics show. But the fertility rate steadily declined in the aftermath of the Great Recession, falling to 1.62 in 2023. Sarah Hayford, co-author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University, told Ohio State News: 'People's feelings about having children are complicated, and we found there are a lot of nuances. 'It suggests that there is no simple answer to the declining birth rate in the US.' The study used data from the National Survey of Family Growth, a federally funded survey conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. Over the years studied, the team found that 62 percent of women said they intended to have a child and 35 percent did not intend to, with only a small percentage saying they didn't know. But up to half of the participants who intended to have children said they were only 'somewhat sure' or 'not sure at all' that they would realize their intention to have a child. The team found that women with higher incomes and education levels were more inclined to report 'very sure' that they would have children than those on the opposite side of the spectrum. Levels of certainty among women considering having children, showing the percentage who said they were not at all sure, somewhat sure, or very sure. Data includes confidence intervals and is grouped by parental status (b) and age (c). However, women with a bachelor's degree who gave that answer declined from 65 percent in 2014 to 54 percent in 2018. The data revealed another pattern holding women back from having children -the actual desire to be a mother. Up to 25 percent of childless women wouldn't be bothered if they never had kids. 'This not being bothered was especially high among younger women, and it increased over time among those who were younger,' Hayford said. 'They are open to different pathways and different kinds of lives. If they don't become parents for whatever reason, it doesn't seem that upsetting to many of them.' One commonly suggested reason for the declining birth rate is that young people today feel uncertain about the future, both of the country and the world, which may be causing them to delay or avoid having children. The team conducted a second study, surveying 3,696 people, which found that the more disassified they were with their own lives, the less likely they were to want a child. 'It was a bit of a surprise to us, but it was only their personal situation that mattered in whether they expected to have children,' Hayford said. 'It wasn't so much what was going on in society that predicted their fertility goals.'
Washington Post
25-06-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Japan is showing the world's economies how to age gracefully
James Pethokoukis is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of 'The Conservative Futurist.' Economic coverage of falling birth rates these days sounds like a CNBC adaptation of the 2006 dystopian thriller 'Children of Men,' a film about societal meltdown in a childless future. Income growth will stall! Innovation will wane! Consumer demand will falter! 'This is how great civilizations throughout history have ended,' Elon Musk warned in one of his many grave pronouncements about 'population collapse.' As this stagnation scenario becomes the default economic forecast, governments around the world are scrambling for ways, often at great fiscal cost, to slow or even reverse their baby busts. From cash incentives to paid leave, the results have been disappointing, and there's little sign of a promising untried fix waiting in reserve. Yet Japan, 17 years into population shrinkage despite its own attempts at pricey natalist policies, now offers a surprisingly hopeful counter that an aging economy can still offer growth and prosperity. Japan's falling birth rate has been treated as a national crisis both inside and outside the country for decades. The negative effects are visible enough: Rural Japan is hollowing out, offering a melancholic tableau that's great for TikTok doomscrolling: closed schools, shuttered shops and an abundance of abandoned homes, or 'akiya.' Perhaps you've heard about the village of Ichinono, where the remaining 60 or so residents craft and publicly display life-size puppets, a wistful echo of a more populous past. The data, however, tells a more upbeat tale (if without any Miyazaki whimsy). A Goldman Sachs analysis this year found that wage growth has risen from 0.3 percent in the 2010s to 1.2 percent in the 2020s, while core inflation has climbed from 0.5 percent to a healthier 1.5 percent, an encouraging development in a country that was long stuck in a deflationary trap. As Goldman sees things, the demographic decline that once drained vitality is now creating a 'virtuous cycle' of tightening labor markets, increased worker bargaining power and more investment in productivity-enhancing tech. These trends are helping prop up the economy even as it weathers a shock from the U.S.-led trade war. When Japan's population peaked in the late 2000s, the country initially offset the decline by drawing more women and older people into the workforce. Rising participation helped mask demographic pressures and kept wages subdued. Now, Japan is running out of workers to tap, and scarcity is finally exerting upward pressure on wages, a boon for the remaining labor force. But rather than just grumbling about the lack of workers, businesses are finding ways to use fewer of them. From software to machines — here's where AI and robotics can really lend a hand — productivity has gone up in Japan's most labor-starved sectors, with corporate profits hitting record highs in fiscal 2024. Recent performance doesn't guarantee long-term results, as the report cautions. Still, the Japan scenario seems a more promising path forward than further natalist nudges. Hungary's lavish baby bonuses and generous parental benefits in Scandinavia have barely budged birth rates, proving again that you can't fight a values-based war with economic weapons. Cash-for-kids advocates Musk and JD Vance would protest, but no financially feasible subsidy can compete with 21st-century attitudes about families, career priorities and life goals. A survey by Pew Research Center this month finds that younger Americans report wanting dramatically fewer children than even just a decade ago. Even if we do find ways to boost marriage rates and fertility at the margins, bigger changes would require a massive cultural shift. The religiously observant maintain higher birth rates; a Gen Z faith revival might prompt a revival in fecundity. People with higher incomes are having more children lately; an AI-led economic boom might build on this trend. And you never know, some futurists think a Muskian breakthrough in space travel might rekindle a sense of purpose for those eager to populate the new colonies. These are fun scenarios to contemplate, but they offer little guidance to policymakers grappling with population trends staring them in the face right now. Accepting a Japan-like fate as a manageable result might encourage policies that help better adjust to it. We could emphasize productivity — the business investment provisions in the Senate tax bill would help here, but so would retooling immigration to focus on letting in the smartest, highest-achieving workers. We could encourage a labor market that maximizes mobility so the right person is in the right job in the right place, perhaps by easing occupational licensing requirements and providing vouchers for job relocation. And there's no time like the present to reform pension systems to reflect the new reality of longer lives and shrinking workforces. If a country that's considered an archetype of demographic decline can go gently into that good night, so, too, might the United States and other rich countries. Like the willow in the wind, better to go with the flow than fight against it.
