Who’s afraid of population growth?

In ten years’ time, there’s a good chance that the main concern in the western world will be the threat of population collapse. Fertility rates are falling everywhere and no government has found a way of reversing the trend. Plenty have tried. South Korea has so far spent $200 billion on tax breaks and lowering childcare costs and has succeeded only in beating its own record for the world’s lowest birth rate, year after year. In Italy, the situation is close to a crisis, and in France it’s not much better.

If this continues, the welfare state model, which depends on a decent worker-to-pensioner ratio, will collapse. There will not be enough tax revenue to finance pensions. A recent study in Italy showed that for every pensioner there are three people of working age, but by 2050 the ratio is projected to be closer to 1:1. The promise of a decent state pension would have to be withdrawn.