You jest but this is a fun question to ask an AI what the TFR of the global 1% would need to be to offset the current decline. Even 100+ per person isn’t close
For shame. The global elite aren't what they used to be. Apparently 2% of the entire Chinese population are direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Or something like that. I have so little vim and vigour that I can't even be bothered to Google it to check!
Great list of research topics. I would add: would it help to call it "child rearing policy," not "fertility policy," because the real problem is the daunting task of child rearing. "Fertility" doesn't get at the actual labor. Ask any grandparent who is doing substantial child-rearing work. (My hand is raised.) Everyone I know who is not having kids will tell you: parents fear the grueling, 18+year long task of doing a good job, when the world is watching, when once you're in you can't back out.
The problem in this area is too much concern about "child rearing policy. " Parents worry so much about doing everything right, but the research shows little to no benefit beyond the bare minimum of a stable household.
I do not disagree! Perhaps the worry should be researched; perhaps it falls under "too much social media" and podcasts that are always hyping the dangers of this and that.
I agree this is a problem in some parts of America, but it doesn't explain the global issue. I find the global issue truly puzzling. I don't have any avenues of investigation other than the ones Noah lists, though.
“ Collapsing fertility is a bit different from those other problems, because it’s fundamentally a social problem rather than a physical threat like climate change, disease, or starvation.” Are you sure about that? Sperm counts have halved in the past fifty years. Endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment are increasing. There is likely a physical element too.
These articles seem to be saying that sperm counts have probably gone down - though probably not by as much as 50% - but the authors are unsure whether or not they have gone down sufficiently to affect fertility.
Sperm count just one possible issue. As you point out it may not be a key issue. However, infertility is on the rise and I don’t think that can be ignored. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39752330/
I am skeptical that this is a major cause of declining fertility rate.
I believe that the most important proximal cause of declining fertility rate is the age at first marriage for women. When women marry in their early to mid twenties, they have replacement levels of children (on average). When age of first marriage is in the thirties or never, women rarely have replacement levels of children. The correlation is quite strong.
Even modest delays matter mechanically:
Marrying at 28 instead of 22 removes ~6 high-fertility years.
With deliberate spacing and contraception, that often means 1–2 fewer births, even if desired family size is unchanged.
I’m sure there are some men who want to sire a child but can’t due to sperm counts. But by and large, low fertility rates are caused by men and women who are biologically capable of having children, but just don’t want to.
Agree. For me personally it’s the latter. But I’m hopeful that technology will help here as well: Just saw that scientists derived the first human embryo from skin cells.
But speeding up the regulatory process would be great (my wife and I are still struggling to produce embryos). Especially in Europe there are a lot of unnecessary “ethical” hurdles around this type of research and urgency and pragmatism hasn’t arrived in the legislature yet.
I strongly doubt the decrease in fertility rate is driven by some Children of Men style sterility and that fixing infertility issues would move the needle on the rate of population level child bearing.
That's true. And the decline in sperm count has been linked to industrially produced dioxins. So Noah's fertility drive may be at odds with his abundance agenda. Just spotted Susan H's response below which is along similar lines.
There’s a far bigger likely cause of decreased sperm counts. Luckily it’s now treatable.
“Obesity is significantly associated with reduced sperm count and overall semen quality, with men who have obesity showing an average reduction of 19.56 × 10⁶ in total sperm number compared to normal-weight men.The correlation is dose-dependent, with more pronounced effects in higher obesity classes…”
“Obesity represents a particularly important target for intervention because it is highly prevalent, modifiable, and supported by robust evidence across systematic reviews and meta-analyses.The concurrent rise in obesity prevalence and decline in semen quality over recent decades suggests population-level significance.While Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals pose significant risks with potentially severe effects at critical developmental windows, obesity affects a larger proportion of the population and operates through well-characterized, reversible mechanisms”
Dioxins are mainly produced from incomplete burning of waste or paper making using chlorine, or recycling of some metals or plastics, especially the one TCDD with negative fertility effects. Abundance on the other hand calls for more energy, housing and infrastructure, not paper or waste burning. Paper use (note that cardboard doesn’t use much chlorine in its production) is declining, so abundance isn’t a problem here. Maybe stop incomplete incineration and recycling metal and plastics would reduce dioxins somewhat.
Study released last year shows “a growing prevalence of infertility among individuals aged 15-49 years worldwide from 1990 to 2021, with an expected continued increase through 2040.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39752330/
That study finds infertility (1.8%) for males (3.7%) for females, so it is obviously not a major cause. Not irrelevant, obviously, but still not a major cause.
The main fact that we possess: that this fertility decline is almost universal, world-wide.
Thus, many of the obvious suspects are not the core problem.
I might believe fervently that young couples need housing. My conservative neighbor might believe fervently that birth control is immoral. And thus political responses to fertility decline are likely to follow those directions.
However, fertility decline is occurring in places with sufficient housing as well as in locations with only the limited birth control that existed throughout history -- so obviously these are NOT the core causes of fertility decline.
But in case anyone hasn't noticed, it is very difficult to get masses of human beings to address problems with anything like that sort of objective mindset. I suspect that this, more than coping statements, creates the greatest obstacle to solving the problem.
However, fertility decline is occurring in places with sufficient housing as well as in locations with only the limited birth control that existed throughout history”
Citation needed. I would be surprised to learn family planning wasn’t happening.
Birth control is increasingly available even in poorer countries. 2026-India doesn't have the same birth control access as 2026-USA, but it has way more birth control access than 1900-India. Likewise for many other poor-to-middle-development countries.
I am finally glad that people are waking up to this issue. I cannot address the world, only a small party of mine. As was reported in The Dispatch and repeated here, government inducements are not working. I can recount the issues with my two daughters.
Neither wants to be the sole childcare giver. Both want careers, neither wants to be a “trad wife” per se. They both would love to find a man who was interested in marriage and accepting of sharing household and childcare. Both would like to marry a successful man. Not necessarily a businessman, it could easily be a tradesman. Equality essentially.
Neither has found their guy. One is 33, the other 31. One is an occupational therapist, the other is finding her way by trying many industries. I do believe the dating apps have been a failure. Interestingly, J Date has worked for others, and that is because of the affinity the clients have. Sharing the Jewish experience and religion probably helps break the ice, whereas an app that is just for hooking up people who share nothing in common.
Cost and child care are the two biggest obstacles once you get beyond finding a partner. I am finding men do not want the responsibility of marriage and fatherhood, which is leading to women getting married older, while they are hitting their stride in their careers in their mid-30s.
The allure of marriage is just not there. People seem to be ok with it. They don’t see the value of family, even though they came from one. It is odd. My dating was probably geared to sex at first, but as I aged, I wanted a partner, a marriage, and a family. I will be married to my best friend for 39 years this year.
Child care is a huge issue. Many don’t want to send their kid away to strangers. So here are my solutions. Day Care at your place of business and offerings of work from home for both spouses. This way, the children are not with strangers, and duties can be shared.
It obviously wouldn’t work for a married waitress and cook; a restaurant probably isn't the perfect place to have day care. It wouldn’t work for a cop married to a nurse.
Full-time for a nurse is three 12-hour shifts, cops work from 10 to 12 hours, and some have 8-hour days.
So how do you solve some insolvables? Obviously, staggered work schedules might help. The cop could also work 12-hour shifts on different days from his nurse wife. She potentially might have her hospital or facility offer daycare.
One way to solve this would be to have zero taxes for couples with young children. Early schooling with day care options and after-care options. The old question of how to eat an elephant, one bite at a time. We perhaps cannot solve the cost of raising a teenager, but child care, the real time frame is until the kids get to school full-time. We have to get them past age 6.
Once they pass that, and the cost of daycare won’t wreck them, we can raise their taxes slightly.
Enlisting businesses to be family-friendly will fall on businesses that can help. Some will not be able to help. We need to tackle this one bite at a time.
Part of the problem is that people aren't bored any more. For the whole of human history boredom was a fundamental fact of human existence and coupling, sex and child-rearing were a diverting way to pass the time. But with the growth of the entertainment sector over the last 30 years no one is bored any more. Pascal described the human condition as 'boredom, fear and inconstancy'; But Lana Del Rey describes the modern human condition: 'I say, "You the bestest", Lean in for a big kiss, Put his favourite perfume on, Go play your video game'.
Plenty. There are successful families and fractured families. Most of the time, those fractures can heal with age, or they continue. Have you been with happy families or mostly bad familial relationships? I guess it matters which one defines your perspective.
I was trying to keep it light but plenty of people have poor family experiences that sort of take away the romance of it and maybe they choose to only have one kid because they (rationally) anticipate that will be less stressful for everyone and more conducive to a happier life. Or they forgo it entirely to focus on work, fun or survival as the case may be.
This is a problem that will solve itself through natural selection. Whichever biological or cultural traits lead people to actually reproduce above replacement rate will become more prevalent in the human population, and those that don't will decrease, until average fertility once again reaches replacement levels.
We might not particularly look forward to the Amish, the Orthodox Jews, and other such groups inheriting the earth, but Homo Sapiens is in no danger of going extinct from fertility collapse.
I was thinking of this at well. Inherently, nature is such that you’re basically forced to choose a viable sets of belief or be wiped out.
Not having children and focusing all your effort on your careers is not a viable set of beliefs. Thus, it will be wiped out.
Obviously, once human obtain immortality or being able to factory-produce children from artificial wombs, then that belief would become viable, but until then.
I think you are right, it seems mainly a cultural issue but can't you influence culture?
In the past the cultural norm was to have children, we moved as societies to individualism (with the technical means for birth control). People are sheep, so here we are with a different cultural norm regarding getting children except as you point out at certain minorities.
So the question than becomes how can we influence the cultural aspect of getting children, without going back to the peer pressure of the past. Sounds like an impossible dilemma to solve but I think this might be the only way.
Homo Sapiens is in no danger from extinction, but we'd preferably like to reverse fertility collapse before modern industrial society collapses, right?
I think that it is better for the world long term to figure out how to live reasonablly with a smaller population than to figure out how to increase the population to fit our current expectations and requirements. I believe that what we are seeing is the human population is reverting to some sort of norm, and that the having large families was a transitional phase driven by a combination of significant infant and childhood mortality ( largely solved) and the need to have a large and compliant workforce for your farm or business ( completely solved in the West and those Asian countries mentioned here).
correct, there is nothing wrong with this other than the human organizational systems will have to be adjusted and the people winning in these systems don't want that, it will be significantly better for the environment for sure
What is completely missing from your analysis is the fact that the identified problems are related to the "transient" phase, not to the "steady state".
Human population has been below one billion for 99.5% of its existence. Even with a worldwide fertility rate of 1, it would take 240 years to get us back there.
So there is actually 3 centuries to work on the problem, once every country reaches the "catastrophic" rate of China.
Of course I understand that the transient problems are nothing to be scoffed at, but the global fertility rate is not even below replacement yet.
And actually a redistribution from the older population (which owns most of the assets) to the younger one (who has the capacity for labour) would not be unwelcome.
The other question is: how big of a world population do we actually want? Fewer people does tend to mean less consumption of natural resources and less pollution. Paul Erlich was wrong about the dangers of population growth in the 1960s and food production has indeed kept pace with population, but people are still burning lots of carbon and doing other things that are likely to bite humanity in its ass...
The biggest cause of habitat destruction isn't climate change or pollution, it's population, clearer forests for farms etc, so many people are freaking out because it will disrupt our corrupt, unsustainable systems but maybe behavior-wise humans are just finding their equilibrium
Although he sold lots of books 50 years ago, Paul Ehrlich was never right about anything, as anyone who has followed up on what he’s claimed can readily see.
down to rational choice. At no time in history has the opportunity cost to having children been greater in terms of independence, ease of life, and material comfort.
This is surprisingly simple problem to fix. Why should /I/ have children when other people will bear all the costs of raising children and then I get to steal the labor of those children to fund my state pension(social security)? The simple solution is that he who doesn't work does not want those who don't have children at replacement should not be allowed to collect social security. At a minimum the retirement age should be changed to 75 and then lowered for every child that you have such that 3 children allows you to retire at 65. But I would prefer that no children means no checks.
We as a pair already spent a lot of money on IVF, no luck so far. It would be evil to hit us with extra taxes or exclusion from social security on top of this. Indeed in that case, for a person with fertility problems, it would make sense not to try any treatments as well and save/spend the money instead, thus reducing birthrates further as fewer IVF attempts would be done.
Oh, and the clinics are full. It is not a rare problem at all.
Adoption and foster care will count as having children. The right to collect social security on the basis of a child couldl also be a fully tradable asset. You could purchase from a single mother of 6 children the right to collect on the basis of 3 of her children. There are no excuses.
How many kids do you have for adoption if there is a general dearth of kids being born in the very same society? Far fewer than actual infertile couples. Order of magnitude less at least.
And cross-border adoption with highly fertile nations (mostly in Africa) is terrible. Try doing anything within the framework of a highly corrupt African bureaucracy which sees you as a naive rich person to be mercilessly fleeced.
There won't be any children to foster or adopt in this system. There are few enough already. That's why I propose changing contributions rather than benefits. Yes that means infertile people pay much more in taxes, but they don't have the expense of raising kids, so it is naturally fair - important for the politics. Incentives are also much more effective when they are immediate. Lots of people don't think about retirement in their 20s and early 30s.
This is the solution I imagine would occur if we find nothing else. Even if it doesn't reverse fertility, it will free governments from the shackles of aging populations.
Still, it seems so... crude and dehumanizing, treating people as if they are only worth dignity if they have children. It would be far better, from the perspective of a liberal humanist, if we could find gentler ways to prod people to have children.
You’ve raised some interesting points, but you didn’t acknowledge that many species are seeing dramatic population declines. Animals and plants are dying off, and pollution and climate change most likely drive all of it. Healthy habitats, and adequate food supply with clean water, are shrinking. All life will decline until the planet resets, as it has done several times. Hopefully the people that remain will have learned how to make a better beginning next time.
Wait, so you think human fertility is declining because of habitat loss or inadequate food supply? What habitat would that be, walkable cities? We produce globally over 3000 calories per person, so that is more than adequate.
You could start by removing the legal requirement for parents of a third child to replace their car with a minivan because you can't fit three car seats in the back seat of a car and the law says that you have to keep kids in booster seats much longer than any reasonable assessment would show.
"Since 1977, U.S. states have passed laws steadily raising the age for which a child must ride in a car safety seat. These laws significantly raise the cost of having a third child, as many regular-sized cars cannot fit three child seats in the back. Using census data and state-year variation in laws, we estimate that when women have two children of ages requiring mandated car seats, they have a lower annual probability of giving birth by 0.73 percentage points. Consistent with a causal channel, this effect is limited to third child births, is concentrated in households with access to a car, and is larger when a male is present (when both front seats are likely to be occupied). We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980, with 90% of this decline being since 2000."
The only and biggest problem with this, though, is the actual willingness for governments to actually enforce policies findings from the hypothetical scientific research rather than the scientific research itself.
For instance, if the research did indeed found that taking away phone or having early-year pregnancy or downing 2 cigar and 3 banana per day, in that order, would somehow magically restore the fertility back above replacement, implementing them would be a challenge for a dictatorship, let alone a democracy.
As an example, without even doing any research, I’m almost certain that changing the tax system such that an average person is taxed at an absurd 90% but the rate reduces to, say, 10% as long as they are a parent would solve the issue overnight.
Obviously, this is an impossible policy to implement. I believe the research should be centered around a set of policies that are both politically viable but also averts the fertility crisis. And, possibly, we might discover that that venn diagram might not exist at all.
“…a shrinking population is also an aging population. Older people can work longer, but eventually they decline and must be supported by younger workers.” This argument seems to miss a key point. If people are not only living longer but staying healthier for longer, the traditional divide between “working-age” and “elderly” gets pushed back - and dependency ratios are reduced. We are "retiring" too early. Also worth acknowledging that lower fertility and slower population growth will significantly ease environmental pressures. I may be an outlier but I think a declining global population - reflecting, in part, women’s expanded choices beyond childbearing - may be one of the few genuinely positive trends in the world today.
I for one disagree. Even in a world where everyone is perfectly healthy throughout and suddenly drop dead at 85, a population shrinkage is inherently bad for humanity prosperity as a whole. If ‘human prosperity’ is defined by how far are we from colonizing this galaxy, for instance, having a lower amount of people would obviously mean less capacity of research, less technological gains, and more time for a large stray asteroid to hit us without mustering enough technological prowess to deal with it.
It misses multiple key points, probably the key-est of which being: there'll be an equilibrium at a lower population. Of course one can point at issues when transitioning to a lower population. But there's also been a lot of issues transitioning to a horribly overcrowded population of 10 billion. It'd be silly to say that the population will keep growing forever, and it'd be silly to say it'll shrink forever. And it'd be silly to say that because, on the way to whatever it winds up at, it'll grow or shrink, therefore that's bad.
Instead we should ask ourselves whether the world is more pleasant with a population of 6 billion or 12, and then stop whining about people's choices.
The problem is, can we reach that population equilibrium without the collapse of modern industrial society?
Because we know, at least, that there is one set of conditions that will 100% stabilize and raise the fertility rate: those of a preindustrial, agrarian society. If fertility collapse cannot be stopped in any other way, it will be stopped once industrial society collapses and we regress back to that agrarian state. So the extinction of the Human species is not a concern.
However, for (hopefully) obvious reasons, this would still be a catastrophe.
this idea that if the population shrinks a little (which it hasn't done yet) that'll magically transition us to a post-apocalyptic landscape is very strange. The most likely outcome is that we wake up in a sci-fi trope? Really?
Just because it's a trope doesn't mean it's true. Warp drive is a trope too but that doesn't mean it's happening.
Assume that there is no way (or we do not find a way) for modern society to return fertility rate to 2.1. Assume that the fertility rate is a function of modern social conditions, and does not depend on total population. Thus, the population will continue to shrink indefinitely. At some point, the population will be too small to sustain industrial infrastructure and supply chains.
Once we reach that point, industrial society will collapse. Humanity will regress to either an agricultural or hunter-gatherer state. At which point, the population will stabilize, as we know such conditions are sufficient to drive up the fertility rate.
Now that I think about it, the other possibility is that we invent Artificial superintelligence before we reach the point of industrial collapse. This would allow ASI to sustain our industrial infrastructure. However, unless ASI comes up with a way to return fertility to 2.1, this would in fact lead to the total extinction of humanity. So perhaps an even worse future.
I mean, that's the entire point of Noah's post. Let's invest in research to try and find ways to return fertility to 2.1, before we reach the point of societal collapse.
"There'll be an equilibrium at a lower population" - you are making the assumption that even if we do nothing, this equilibrium exists at a point before society collapses. Do you have any evidence to support this assumption? You say it's a "common normal thing", but I cannot think of a single example of a modern, industrial sociey that is able to reverse or even arrest fertility decline long-term. Can you name one?
People who work in physically demanding jobs have a very different perspective on that than people who sit at a keyboard. Even for us keyboard warriors, mental decline starts in our sixties. Maybe we CAN keep working until our 80s, but that doesn't mean we should.
The cost of everything that you need to have a family has gone up to the extent that it has become a genuine part of the decision to expand your family. When you do the maths (if you do the maths!) the question becomes do you want one kid with the a higher quality of education, healthcare, housing conditions or more kids and lower quality. Sometimes its not even a question of quality, its literally unaffordable. Or perhaps its that both parents need to squeeze themselves further to enable it. I would speculate that #5's "giving" money method doesn't help because families want (need?) independence. I am an engineer not an economist so excuse any potential ignorance here but I believe that a better redistribution of wealth from those with extreme wealth and move it towards fundamental public infrastructure - housing, healthcare and transport is what is needed to give young families the confidence that if shit hits the fan they can still get their scans, afford a decent house and take a train to work.
Musk's solution to declining fertility rates so far has been rather more direct than funding research into the problem.
Not much, because most of the mothers of his sons not have much kids (and what matter for population growth is the ration children/mothers)
See my comment above on this point
You jest but this is a fun question to ask an AI what the TFR of the global 1% would need to be to offset the current decline. Even 100+ per person isn’t close
For shame. The global elite aren't what they used to be. Apparently 2% of the entire Chinese population are direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Or something like that. I have so little vim and vigour that I can't even be bothered to Google it to check!
Great list of research topics. I would add: would it help to call it "child rearing policy," not "fertility policy," because the real problem is the daunting task of child rearing. "Fertility" doesn't get at the actual labor. Ask any grandparent who is doing substantial child-rearing work. (My hand is raised.) Everyone I know who is not having kids will tell you: parents fear the grueling, 18+year long task of doing a good job, when the world is watching, when once you're in you can't back out.
The problem in this area is too much concern about "child rearing policy. " Parents worry so much about doing everything right, but the research shows little to no benefit beyond the bare minimum of a stable household.
I do not disagree! Perhaps the worry should be researched; perhaps it falls under "too much social media" and podcasts that are always hyping the dangers of this and that.
I agree this is a problem in some parts of America, but it doesn't explain the global issue. I find the global issue truly puzzling. I don't have any avenues of investigation other than the ones Noah lists, though.
I don't know, from what I have read childhood is pretty stressful in South Korea, with obsessions over schooling, exams, the right schools, etc.
But what about Africa and Latin America? (I know, Africa is BIG and there are many different cultures, but that just makes it all more puzzling.)
“ Collapsing fertility is a bit different from those other problems, because it’s fundamentally a social problem rather than a physical threat like climate change, disease, or starvation.” Are you sure about that? Sperm counts have halved in the past fifty years. Endocrine disrupting chemicals in the environment are increasing. There is likely a physical element too.
This is not correct. It's possible (but far from certain) that sperm count has gone down, but even if it has, it is not causing any significant society-wide fertility issues now. See https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/declining-sperm-count-much-more-than for more information.
These articles seem to be saying that sperm counts have probably gone down - though probably not by as much as 50% - but the authors are unsure whether or not they have gone down sufficiently to affect fertility.
Sperm count just one possible issue. As you point out it may not be a key issue. However, infertility is on the rise and I don’t think that can be ignored. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39752330/
I am skeptical that this is a major cause of declining fertility rate.
I believe that the most important proximal cause of declining fertility rate is the age at first marriage for women. When women marry in their early to mid twenties, they have replacement levels of children (on average). When age of first marriage is in the thirties or never, women rarely have replacement levels of children. The correlation is quite strong.
Even modest delays matter mechanically:
Marrying at 28 instead of 22 removes ~6 high-fertility years.
With deliberate spacing and contraception, that often means 1–2 fewer births, even if desired family size is unchanged.
I’m sure there are some men who want to sire a child but can’t due to sperm counts. But by and large, low fertility rates are caused by men and women who are biologically capable of having children, but just don’t want to.
Agree. For me personally it’s the latter. But I’m hopeful that technology will help here as well: Just saw that scientists derived the first human embryo from skin cells.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/30/nx-s1-5553322/ivg-human-eggs-cells-fertility
But speeding up the regulatory process would be great (my wife and I are still struggling to produce embryos). Especially in Europe there are a lot of unnecessary “ethical” hurdles around this type of research and urgency and pragmatism hasn’t arrived in the legislature yet.
I strongly doubt the decrease in fertility rate is driven by some Children of Men style sterility and that fixing infertility issues would move the needle on the rate of population level child bearing.
That's true. And the decline in sperm count has been linked to industrially produced dioxins. So Noah's fertility drive may be at odds with his abundance agenda. Just spotted Susan H's response below which is along similar lines.
There’s a far bigger likely cause of decreased sperm counts. Luckily it’s now treatable.
“Obesity is significantly associated with reduced sperm count and overall semen quality, with men who have obesity showing an average reduction of 19.56 × 10⁶ in total sperm number compared to normal-weight men.The correlation is dose-dependent, with more pronounced effects in higher obesity classes…”
“Obesity represents a particularly important target for intervention because it is highly prevalent, modifiable, and supported by robust evidence across systematic reviews and meta-analyses.The concurrent rise in obesity prevalence and decline in semen quality over recent decades suggests population-level significance.While Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals pose significant risks with potentially severe effects at critical developmental windows, obesity affects a larger proportion of the population and operates through well-characterized, reversible mechanisms”
Sans abundance we have economic decline that without doubt triggers shrinking pie violence and competition.
Medical counter-balancing (fertility medicine) to the quite plausible own-effect is the best route.
Dioxins are mainly produced from incomplete burning of waste or paper making using chlorine, or recycling of some metals or plastics, especially the one TCDD with negative fertility effects. Abundance on the other hand calls for more energy, housing and infrastructure, not paper or waste burning. Paper use (note that cardboard doesn’t use much chlorine in its production) is declining, so abundance isn’t a problem here. Maybe stop incomplete incineration and recycling metal and plastics would reduce dioxins somewhat.
See my comment above about identity changes required
Study released last year shows “a growing prevalence of infertility among individuals aged 15-49 years worldwide from 1990 to 2021, with an expected continued increase through 2040.” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39752330/
That study finds infertility (1.8%) for males (3.7%) for females, so it is obviously not a major cause. Not irrelevant, obviously, but still not a major cause.
The main fact that we possess: that this fertility decline is almost universal, world-wide.
Thus, many of the obvious suspects are not the core problem.
I might believe fervently that young couples need housing. My conservative neighbor might believe fervently that birth control is immoral. And thus political responses to fertility decline are likely to follow those directions.
However, fertility decline is occurring in places with sufficient housing as well as in locations with only the limited birth control that existed throughout history -- so obviously these are NOT the core causes of fertility decline.
But in case anyone hasn't noticed, it is very difficult to get masses of human beings to address problems with anything like that sort of objective mindset. I suspect that this, more than coping statements, creates the greatest obstacle to solving the problem.
No. It wouldn't explain why poor countries have/had high fertility rates.
“
However, fertility decline is occurring in places with sufficient housing as well as in locations with only the limited birth control that existed throughout history”
Citation needed. I would be surprised to learn family planning wasn’t happening.
Birth control is increasingly available even in poorer countries. 2026-India doesn't have the same birth control access as 2026-USA, but it has way more birth control access than 1900-India. Likewise for many other poor-to-middle-development countries.
I am finally glad that people are waking up to this issue. I cannot address the world, only a small party of mine. As was reported in The Dispatch and repeated here, government inducements are not working. I can recount the issues with my two daughters.
Neither wants to be the sole childcare giver. Both want careers, neither wants to be a “trad wife” per se. They both would love to find a man who was interested in marriage and accepting of sharing household and childcare. Both would like to marry a successful man. Not necessarily a businessman, it could easily be a tradesman. Equality essentially.
Neither has found their guy. One is 33, the other 31. One is an occupational therapist, the other is finding her way by trying many industries. I do believe the dating apps have been a failure. Interestingly, J Date has worked for others, and that is because of the affinity the clients have. Sharing the Jewish experience and religion probably helps break the ice, whereas an app that is just for hooking up people who share nothing in common.
Cost and child care are the two biggest obstacles once you get beyond finding a partner. I am finding men do not want the responsibility of marriage and fatherhood, which is leading to women getting married older, while they are hitting their stride in their careers in their mid-30s.
The allure of marriage is just not there. People seem to be ok with it. They don’t see the value of family, even though they came from one. It is odd. My dating was probably geared to sex at first, but as I aged, I wanted a partner, a marriage, and a family. I will be married to my best friend for 39 years this year.
Child care is a huge issue. Many don’t want to send their kid away to strangers. So here are my solutions. Day Care at your place of business and offerings of work from home for both spouses. This way, the children are not with strangers, and duties can be shared.
It obviously wouldn’t work for a married waitress and cook; a restaurant probably isn't the perfect place to have day care. It wouldn’t work for a cop married to a nurse.
Full-time for a nurse is three 12-hour shifts, cops work from 10 to 12 hours, and some have 8-hour days.
So how do you solve some insolvables? Obviously, staggered work schedules might help. The cop could also work 12-hour shifts on different days from his nurse wife. She potentially might have her hospital or facility offer daycare.
One way to solve this would be to have zero taxes for couples with young children. Early schooling with day care options and after-care options. The old question of how to eat an elephant, one bite at a time. We perhaps cannot solve the cost of raising a teenager, but child care, the real time frame is until the kids get to school full-time. We have to get them past age 6.
Once they pass that, and the cost of daycare won’t wreck them, we can raise their taxes slightly.
Enlisting businesses to be family-friendly will fall on businesses that can help. Some will not be able to help. We need to tackle this one bite at a time.
Part of the problem is that people aren't bored any more. For the whole of human history boredom was a fundamental fact of human existence and coupling, sex and child-rearing were a diverting way to pass the time. But with the growth of the entertainment sector over the last 30 years no one is bored any more. Pascal described the human condition as 'boredom, fear and inconstancy'; But Lana Del Rey describes the modern human condition: 'I say, "You the bestest", Lean in for a big kiss, Put his favourite perfume on, Go play your video game'.
I don’t exactly remember, but I’ll bet when my wife and I were younger, we had sex if we were bored.
"They don’t see the value of family, even though they came from one. It is odd."
Have you met families? : )
Plenty. There are successful families and fractured families. Most of the time, those fractures can heal with age, or they continue. Have you been with happy families or mostly bad familial relationships? I guess it matters which one defines your perspective.
I was trying to keep it light but plenty of people have poor family experiences that sort of take away the romance of it and maybe they choose to only have one kid because they (rationally) anticipate that will be less stressful for everyone and more conducive to a happier life. Or they forgo it entirely to focus on work, fun or survival as the case may be.
I blame fun! :-)
I address many of these issues in my comment above
Good post Earl.
Thanks boss. I don’t have a broken bones...I jsut finished my morning rant, I think you’ll enjoy it.
I did! amd said so young lad
This is a problem that will solve itself through natural selection. Whichever biological or cultural traits lead people to actually reproduce above replacement rate will become more prevalent in the human population, and those that don't will decrease, until average fertility once again reaches replacement levels.
We might not particularly look forward to the Amish, the Orthodox Jews, and other such groups inheriting the earth, but Homo Sapiens is in no danger of going extinct from fertility collapse.
That may be right, but humanity may be in for a dark few centuries until that happens.
I was thinking of this at well. Inherently, nature is such that you’re basically forced to choose a viable sets of belief or be wiped out.
Not having children and focusing all your effort on your careers is not a viable set of beliefs. Thus, it will be wiped out.
Obviously, once human obtain immortality or being able to factory-produce children from artificial wombs, then that belief would become viable, but until then.
I think you are right, it seems mainly a cultural issue but can't you influence culture?
In the past the cultural norm was to have children, we moved as societies to individualism (with the technical means for birth control). People are sheep, so here we are with a different cultural norm regarding getting children except as you point out at certain minorities.
So the question than becomes how can we influence the cultural aspect of getting children, without going back to the peer pressure of the past. Sounds like an impossible dilemma to solve but I think this might be the only way.
I am skeptical of this. Have researchers tried modelling this "high fertility island" scenario?
Homo Sapiens is in no danger from extinction, but we'd preferably like to reverse fertility collapse before modern industrial society collapses, right?
I think that it is better for the world long term to figure out how to live reasonablly with a smaller population than to figure out how to increase the population to fit our current expectations and requirements. I believe that what we are seeing is the human population is reverting to some sort of norm, and that the having large families was a transitional phase driven by a combination of significant infant and childhood mortality ( largely solved) and the need to have a large and compliant workforce for your farm or business ( completely solved in the West and those Asian countries mentioned here).
correct, there is nothing wrong with this other than the human organizational systems will have to be adjusted and the people winning in these systems don't want that, it will be significantly better for the environment for sure
What is completely missing from your analysis is the fact that the identified problems are related to the "transient" phase, not to the "steady state".
Human population has been below one billion for 99.5% of its existence. Even with a worldwide fertility rate of 1, it would take 240 years to get us back there.
So there is actually 3 centuries to work on the problem, once every country reaches the "catastrophic" rate of China.
Of course I understand that the transient problems are nothing to be scoffed at, but the global fertility rate is not even below replacement yet.
And actually a redistribution from the older population (which owns most of the assets) to the younger one (who has the capacity for labour) would not be unwelcome.
The other question is: how big of a world population do we actually want? Fewer people does tend to mean less consumption of natural resources and less pollution. Paul Erlich was wrong about the dangers of population growth in the 1960s and food production has indeed kept pace with population, but people are still burning lots of carbon and doing other things that are likely to bite humanity in its ass...
The biggest cause of habitat destruction isn't climate change or pollution, it's population, clearer forests for farms etc, so many people are freaking out because it will disrupt our corrupt, unsustainable systems but maybe behavior-wise humans are just finding their equilibrium
Although he sold lots of books 50 years ago, Paul Ehrlich was never right about anything, as anyone who has followed up on what he’s claimed can readily see.
I think it really boils
down to rational choice. At no time in history has the opportunity cost to having children been greater in terms of independence, ease of life, and material comfort.
This is surprisingly simple problem to fix. Why should /I/ have children when other people will bear all the costs of raising children and then I get to steal the labor of those children to fund my state pension(social security)? The simple solution is that he who doesn't work does not want those who don't have children at replacement should not be allowed to collect social security. At a minimum the retirement age should be changed to 75 and then lowered for every child that you have such that 3 children allows you to retire at 65. But I would prefer that no children means no checks.
What about naturally infertile people?
We as a pair already spent a lot of money on IVF, no luck so far. It would be evil to hit us with extra taxes or exclusion from social security on top of this. Indeed in that case, for a person with fertility problems, it would make sense not to try any treatments as well and save/spend the money instead, thus reducing birthrates further as fewer IVF attempts would be done.
Oh, and the clinics are full. It is not a rare problem at all.
Adoption and foster care will count as having children. The right to collect social security on the basis of a child couldl also be a fully tradable asset. You could purchase from a single mother of 6 children the right to collect on the basis of 3 of her children. There are no excuses.
How many kids do you have for adoption if there is a general dearth of kids being born in the very same society? Far fewer than actual infertile couples. Order of magnitude less at least.
And cross-border adoption with highly fertile nations (mostly in Africa) is terrible. Try doing anything within the framework of a highly corrupt African bureaucracy which sees you as a naive rich person to be mercilessly fleeced.
Well that's an empathetic response (not).
There won't be any children to foster or adopt in this system. There are few enough already. That's why I propose changing contributions rather than benefits. Yes that means infertile people pay much more in taxes, but they don't have the expense of raising kids, so it is naturally fair - important for the politics. Incentives are also much more effective when they are immediate. Lots of people don't think about retirement in their 20s and early 30s.
This is the solution I imagine would occur if we find nothing else. Even if it doesn't reverse fertility, it will free governments from the shackles of aging populations.
Still, it seems so... crude and dehumanizing, treating people as if they are only worth dignity if they have children. It would be far better, from the perspective of a liberal humanist, if we could find gentler ways to prod people to have children.
You’ve raised some interesting points, but you didn’t acknowledge that many species are seeing dramatic population declines. Animals and plants are dying off, and pollution and climate change most likely drive all of it. Healthy habitats, and adequate food supply with clean water, are shrinking. All life will decline until the planet resets, as it has done several times. Hopefully the people that remain will have learned how to make a better beginning next time.
Wait, so you think human fertility is declining because of habitat loss or inadequate food supply? What habitat would that be, walkable cities? We produce globally over 3000 calories per person, so that is more than adequate.
You could start by removing the legal requirement for parents of a third child to replace their car with a minivan because you can't fit three car seats in the back seat of a car and the law says that you have to keep kids in booster seats much longer than any reasonable assessment would show.
https://thezvi.substack.com/p/on-car-seats-as-contraception?triedRedirect=true
I bet this would have zero detectable effect on fertility.
You might be surprised to find out that people actually have found an effect of car seat laws on fertility...
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/731812
"Since 1977, U.S. states have passed laws steadily raising the age for which a child must ride in a car safety seat. These laws significantly raise the cost of having a third child, as many regular-sized cars cannot fit three child seats in the back. Using census data and state-year variation in laws, we estimate that when women have two children of ages requiring mandated car seats, they have a lower annual probability of giving birth by 0.73 percentage points. Consistent with a causal channel, this effect is limited to third child births, is concentrated in households with access to a car, and is larger when a male is present (when both front seats are likely to be occupied). We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980, with 90% of this decline being since 2000."
It's peer reviewed science! 😉
It's peer-reviewed "science" 😉
Seriously, these types of uncontrolled observational population "studies" are worse than useless.
They actively pollute the information space. In the worst case, they can wind up influencing government policy - c.f. Tylenol in pregnancy
Great post, Noah.
The only and biggest problem with this, though, is the actual willingness for governments to actually enforce policies findings from the hypothetical scientific research rather than the scientific research itself.
For instance, if the research did indeed found that taking away phone or having early-year pregnancy or downing 2 cigar and 3 banana per day, in that order, would somehow magically restore the fertility back above replacement, implementing them would be a challenge for a dictatorship, let alone a democracy.
As an example, without even doing any research, I’m almost certain that changing the tax system such that an average person is taxed at an absurd 90% but the rate reduces to, say, 10% as long as they are a parent would solve the issue overnight.
Obviously, this is an impossible policy to implement. I believe the research should be centered around a set of policies that are both politically viable but also averts the fertility crisis. And, possibly, we might discover that that venn diagram might not exist at all.
“…a shrinking population is also an aging population. Older people can work longer, but eventually they decline and must be supported by younger workers.” This argument seems to miss a key point. If people are not only living longer but staying healthier for longer, the traditional divide between “working-age” and “elderly” gets pushed back - and dependency ratios are reduced. We are "retiring" too early. Also worth acknowledging that lower fertility and slower population growth will significantly ease environmental pressures. I may be an outlier but I think a declining global population - reflecting, in part, women’s expanded choices beyond childbearing - may be one of the few genuinely positive trends in the world today.
I for one disagree. Even in a world where everyone is perfectly healthy throughout and suddenly drop dead at 85, a population shrinkage is inherently bad for humanity prosperity as a whole. If ‘human prosperity’ is defined by how far are we from colonizing this galaxy, for instance, having a lower amount of people would obviously mean less capacity of research, less technological gains, and more time for a large stray asteroid to hit us without mustering enough technological prowess to deal with it.
It misses multiple key points, probably the key-est of which being: there'll be an equilibrium at a lower population. Of course one can point at issues when transitioning to a lower population. But there's also been a lot of issues transitioning to a horribly overcrowded population of 10 billion. It'd be silly to say that the population will keep growing forever, and it'd be silly to say it'll shrink forever. And it'd be silly to say that because, on the way to whatever it winds up at, it'll grow or shrink, therefore that's bad.
Instead we should ask ourselves whether the world is more pleasant with a population of 6 billion or 12, and then stop whining about people's choices.
The problem is, can we reach that population equilibrium without the collapse of modern industrial society?
Because we know, at least, that there is one set of conditions that will 100% stabilize and raise the fertility rate: those of a preindustrial, agrarian society. If fertility collapse cannot be stopped in any other way, it will be stopped once industrial society collapses and we regress back to that agrarian state. So the extinction of the Human species is not a concern.
However, for (hopefully) obvious reasons, this would still be a catastrophe.
this idea that if the population shrinks a little (which it hasn't done yet) that'll magically transition us to a post-apocalyptic landscape is very strange. The most likely outcome is that we wake up in a sci-fi trope? Really?
Just because it's a trope doesn't mean it's true. Warp drive is a trope too but that doesn't mean it's happening.
The thought experiment goes as follows.
Assume that there is no way (or we do not find a way) for modern society to return fertility rate to 2.1. Assume that the fertility rate is a function of modern social conditions, and does not depend on total population. Thus, the population will continue to shrink indefinitely. At some point, the population will be too small to sustain industrial infrastructure and supply chains.
Once we reach that point, industrial society will collapse. Humanity will regress to either an agricultural or hunter-gatherer state. At which point, the population will stabilize, as we know such conditions are sufficient to drive up the fertility rate.
Now that I think about it, the other possibility is that we invent Artificial superintelligence before we reach the point of industrial collapse. This would allow ASI to sustain our industrial infrastructure. However, unless ASI comes up with a way to return fertility to 2.1, this would in fact lead to the total extinction of humanity. So perhaps an even worse future.
Oh I guess we could also invent immortality.
"Assume that there is no way (or we do not find a way) for modern society to return fertility rate to 2.1"
no, I refuse, because assuming that a common normal thing that has happened frequently becomes impossible is weird and contrived
I mean, that's the entire point of Noah's post. Let's invest in research to try and find ways to return fertility to 2.1, before we reach the point of societal collapse.
"There'll be an equilibrium at a lower population" - you are making the assumption that even if we do nothing, this equilibrium exists at a point before society collapses. Do you have any evidence to support this assumption? You say it's a "common normal thing", but I cannot think of a single example of a modern, industrial sociey that is able to reverse or even arrest fertility decline long-term. Can you name one?
People who work in physically demanding jobs have a very different perspective on that than people who sit at a keyboard. Even for us keyboard warriors, mental decline starts in our sixties. Maybe we CAN keep working until our 80s, but that doesn't mean we should.
The cost of everything that you need to have a family has gone up to the extent that it has become a genuine part of the decision to expand your family. When you do the maths (if you do the maths!) the question becomes do you want one kid with the a higher quality of education, healthcare, housing conditions or more kids and lower quality. Sometimes its not even a question of quality, its literally unaffordable. Or perhaps its that both parents need to squeeze themselves further to enable it. I would speculate that #5's "giving" money method doesn't help because families want (need?) independence. I am an engineer not an economist so excuse any potential ignorance here but I believe that a better redistribution of wealth from those with extreme wealth and move it towards fundamental public infrastructure - housing, healthcare and transport is what is needed to give young families the confidence that if shit hits the fan they can still get their scans, afford a decent house and take a train to work.