by Rick Pruetz, Vice President, Ecocity Builders
Around the world, birthrates are falling and the ability to offset that trend through in-migration is uncertain for various reasons including open hostility from nativists. With notable exceptions, particularly in Africa, most countries are either threatened with depopulation or already experiencing it. Leaders are searching for ways to reverse, slow, avoid, and/or adapt to population shrink. A recent report from the front lines of depopulation recommends implementation of human development strategies that support entire societies as well as potential parents. This approach may or may not achieve the population targets that governments think they want. But application of tools like the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and our own Ecocity Standards will unquestionably help restore the planet and build better lives for future populations regardless of their size.
As of July 2024, the United Nations projects that world population will peak in the mid-2080s at 10.3 billion and decline to about 10.2 billion by 2100. That peak population estimate is about 700 million humans smaller than the UN predicted a decade ago. The population in 63 counties and places has already peaked and the UN expects the population of this group to decline by 14 percent over the next 30 years. Some demographers, including the authors of Empty Planet, believe that peak world population will be lower, (9 billion), and will come sooner than the UN estimates, perhaps sometime between 2040 and 2060. Another recent study estimates that 15,000 US cities could have a fraction of their current populations by 2100.
These trends create many questions for governments around the world. Can we give young couples the support and security needed to start a family? Can we build societies that welcome in-migration to offset falling birthrates? Can we create prospering economies that rely more heavily on the quality rather than the quantity of the workforce? Can we find new ways to maintain the safety net for a growing elderly population with or without an expanding working age population? Will we be able to use this opportunity to relieve the planet of the burden placed on it by the growth spike of humanity? And if depopulation nevertheless continues, will we still be able to build communities where an albeit smaller number of people still lead healthy, happy, and fulfilled lives? A UN report suggests that the answer to all of these questions lies in the application of a comprehensive suite of human development strategies like the Ecocity Standards or the UN’s Strategic Development Goals.
The UN Population Fund (UNPF) position on population is nuanced as I wrote in the August 2023 issue of Ecocities Emerging. Governments should support families so that couples can have as many children as they want. But governments should not attempt to force or bribe women into achieving a target fertility rate involving more children than couples want. Such attempts are often ineffective and can undermine women’s rights according to UNPF’s State of World Population – 8 Billion Lives, Infinite Possibilities: The Case for Rights and Choices.
The case for rights and choices is also a key takeaway of Human Development in Response to Demographic Change, a UNPF study of Serbia’s depopulation. Serbia is now is home to 6.87 million people, almost one million people less than it had in 1991. The report emphasizes that Serbia is in the vanguard of depopulation for various reasons including the proximity of European Union countries that lure working age Serbians to out-migrate either periodically or permanently. But even though it may be an extreme example, many of the recommendations for Serbia are applicable around the world.
Can young couples be motivated to have a child by family-friendly policies like generous parental leave options, tax deductions, affordable childcare, subsidized housing, and other forms of financial assistance? The effect of these efforts has been mixed. Some programs do induce couples to have their first child early, which at least leaves time on biological clocks to have more children later. But the true measure of fertility is the number of babies born throughout an average woman’s entire child-bearing years, a statistic that can take decades to determine.
The pronatalist programs most likely to succeed are often expensive and vulnerable to change from one administration to the next. If young couples suspect that family-friendly incentives are merely experiments that could be eliminated with the next election, they may be reluctant to make a decision that will impact them for the rest of their lives.
Consistent with the UNPF’s overarching principle of “rights and choices” as well as the Ecocity Standards’ goals for equity and individual freedom, governments should be giving couples sustainable and permanent support with the understanding that these actions are inherently valuable regardless of whether or not they achieve any preconceived target birthrate.
Another central message of the UNPF report on Serbia, Human Development in Response to Demographic Change, is that Serbia should promote the wellbeing of the country as a whole as well as potential parents. This human development strategy involves urban revitalization, equitable education, improved healthcare, gender equality, economic justice, sustainable infrastructure, reliable public transportation, affordable housing, reduced pollution, climate action, and renewable energy. All of these development goals create an environment that reduces out-migration and invites businesses to generate and maintain the stable employment that gives couples the confidence to start a family.
Applying these measures are not likely to motivate women to exceed the birthrates that they themselves would choose if provided with gender equality, economic stability, and sustainable family support programs. But adoption of the human development objectives recommended by UNPF will nevertheless help future generations live healthier, happier, and more fulfilling lives regardless of their size.
References
Bricker, D. and Ibbitson, J. 2019. Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline. Crown Publishing.
Feldstein, S. 2023. Population Decline Will Change the World for the Better. Scientific American. Accessed at Population Decline Will Change the World for the Better | Scientific American.
Nuwer, R. 2024. Thousands of U.S. Cities Could Become Virtual Ghost Towns by 2100. Scientific American. Accessed at Thousands of U.S. Cities Could Become Virtual Ghost Towns by 2100 | Scientific American.
Pruetz, R. 2023. Population Bomb and Bust. Ecocities Emerging. Accessed at Population Bomb and Bust – Ecocities Emerging.
United Nations. 2024. UN projects world population to peak within this century. Accessed at UN projects world population to peak within this century | United Nations.
United Nations Population Fund. 2023. 8 Billion Lives, Infinite Possibilities: The Case for Rights and Choices – State of World Population 2023. Accessed at SWOP2023-ENGLISH-230329-web.pdf (unfpa.org).
Vukovic, Danilo. (Editor). 2022. Human Development in Response to Demographic Change. United Nations Development Programme. Accessed at National-Human-Development-Report-Serbia-2022.pdf (un.org).
