Global decline in birth rates and fertility

NYTimes profile on global trend of declining fertility/birth rates.

• US and China censuses showed slowest rate of population increase on record
• Trend is global, affecting all countries
• 20th century saw huge boom in population, 1.6 billion -> 6 billion
• Africa is exception, many families still having many children
• India and Mexico were high growth in the past, now hovering around replacement rate (2.1 children per woman)
• South Korea has lowest rate in the world, 0.92 children per woman. Government has incentives to encourage more children.

Some factoids: - In Japan, adult diapers outsell baby diapers - Sweden is re-purposing childcare facilities to old folks homes

There are also lots of doom and gloom predictions:

• Projection that by year 2100, China will go from 1.4 billion people to 730 million
• By the year 2100, 183 countries in the world (out of 195) will be below replacement rate.

Projections to 2100 of course are entirely untrustworthy.

link