Such an awful lot of stuff is happening right now, even the keenest observer of social trends could be forgiven for missing a statistical milestone passed earlier this month. So here it is: at the beginning of October, it was revealed that, for the first time since the 1970s baby bust, deaths outnumbered births in the UK – meaning, in effect, that all of our population growth (about 680,000 for this year) came from immigration.
The reason why is obvious. The boomers – i.e. people born during the great baby boom of 1945-1965 – are dying out, and they are not being properly replaced, thanks to a low total fertility rate (TFR, which equals ‘births per woman’). In England and Wales, TFR fell to just 1.49, far below the accepted replacement rate of 2.1.
For the first time since the 1970s baby bust, deaths outnumbered births in the UK
That sounds bad. However, the UK is not an outlier. About a week before this mildly epochal announcement by the Office for National Statistics, another statistic dropped, which is much more remarkable.
It came in the form of a new chart of global fertility trends, and if you’ve not checked these recently, they make for startling viewing. For example, most people are aware that East Asian birth rates are low. But do you realise how low? South Korea has a TFR of just 0.7. Considerably less than one child per woman, this feeble birth rate means that Korea could easily halve in size by 2100 – the kind of population loss usually seen only in apocalyptic wars. The disappearance of Korea may happen even quicker than that; it may become a ghost of a nation by about 2060, and we will wonder whatever happened to those fleeting, fascinating people who were so brilliant at industrialised pop music and DIY BBQs.
Elsewhere in baby-less East Asia, the statistics are similar. Tiny Macao is about to vanish altogether: TFR 0.5. Meanwhile, the Chinese might not need to seize Taiwan; they could just wait for it to empty out: Taiwanese TFR is 0.84. They could also take vacant Singapore (0.93), as they have already taken Hong Kong (0.85). But then, how long will China have enough soldiers to do this? China itself has a TFR of exactly 1. The one child policy has come precisely true for them, ever since they abandoned the one child policy. One of the spicier ironies of geopolitics.
And it’s not just East Asia that has dire fertility stats. Looking further afield, lovely Thailand (yes, Thailand) is in trouble: TFR 1.05. The land of smiles is all masked up, and there is a mutinous new generation deliberately refusing to reproduce. This is literally true: a new Siamese social media movement operates under the slogan ‘Let it end with us’. Young Thais are using their deliberate non-fecundity to express dissatisfaction with their money-hoarding, house-owning parents, and the corrupt society they have bequeathed. Younger Brits may feel a twinge of sympathy.
Looking beyond Asia, fertility rates are likewise dire. Canada has a TFR of 1.25, Chile is down at a dismal 1.11, lusty Brazil is posting a not-so-lusty 1.57 (similar to the USA at 1.64), and Puerto Rico has basically given up, at 0.9. These are all way below replacement level. In Europe, it’s the same story: Italy is in dire straits at 1.2. Hungary, despite all Orban’s urgings, is 1.39; Spain has a truly detumescent 1.12, Finland has a frostbitten 1.27.
Many Islamic countries, surprisingly, are no better. Take Albania: 1.38. Or Azerbaijan: 1.42. Or Iran: 1.67. Or Malaysia: 1.54. In fact, the only major part of the world that consistently boasts TFRs we used to consider normal (over 3) is Africa, and even in Africa, TFRs are now finally tumbling. Outside Africa, the few countries that are above replacement level really stand out. Basically, they are Central Asia – Mongolia and the Stans; or Israel and Palestine, who seem to be in an arms race of the newborns. Perhaps predictably.
From a long-term perspective, the decline in human fertility – and, in time, the decline in the global population of Homo sapiens – may be a good thing. Our planet can only sustain so many people, and it’s arguable we are far beyond that number now. Perhaps Planet Earth will be a calmer, cleaner, greener place if we can astutely manage a decline to, say, three or four billion. This is not an insane, pink-haired, Greta Thunberg-ish goal; the global population was four billion as recently as 1975, and – though I was small – I don’t remember 1975 feeling like the stage-set of the childless dystopia Children of Men.
Can we do this without kicking off conflict? Looking around the world, the answer seems to be no. I’m looking at Ukraine – while leafing through a 2008 book called The Next Hundred Years by George Friedman. The book tries to outline the 21st century to come, and it makes some interesting guesses (along with some crackpot takes: Turkey vs USA as the next world war?). One of its best predictions is an aggressive war by Russia, in the 2020s, due to dire demographics.
This, I believe, is what we are seeing in Ukraine. For all that the Ukrainian invasion came out of the blue, and seems insane, if you look at birth rates, it has a brutal logic. Putin is known to be obsessed with Russia’s low fertility rate of 1.42 (it’s even lower among ethnic Russians). At the moment, Russia’s population is weakly sustained by immigration from ex-Soviet Asia and by higher birth rates among non-Russians.
It's not hard to imagine, however, that Putin’s image of a ‘real’ Russian looks less like a Chechen or an Uzbek and much more like a blonde, blue-eyed, Christian-cultured Ukrainian (who probably speaks Russian). Successfully invading Ukraine and absorbing its 40 million Slavs would therefore give a huge and immediate boost to Russia’s tottering population stats, and perhaps buy Putin, and his successors, the time to solve the fertility problem and stabilise Russia’s population.
Unfortunately for Putin, his gamble has so far backfired. Millions have fled Russia (often the youngest and brightest) to avoid sanctions and the draft; meanwhile, the Ukrainians are bravely fighting back, and instead of gaining new blonde babies, Putin is harvesting hundreds of thousands of male corpses. Nevertheless, if Putin eventually succeeds in his awful grinding war, and adds 20 or 30 million Ukrainians to the Russian population, he might still regard it all as a triumph. And then one wonders where else this might happen. It might turn out that the terrible Ukrainian conflict is merely the first in a new wave of Fertility Wars.
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