Study warns of dramatic declines in fertility rates worldwide

P. Pérez Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, March 21, 2024-00:35

The conclusion of a study published in

The Lancet

could well herald the first signs of the extinction of the human race on Earth: by 2050, more than three-quarters of countries will not have fertility rates high enough to sustain population size over time.

This figure increases to 97% if we look towards the new century, 2100.

This unflattering study also predicts significant changes in birth patterns: the proportion of live births of new children in the world will almost double in low-income regions from 18% in 2021 to 35% in 2100. So, in particular, the Sub-Saharan Africa will account for one in every two children born on the planet within a century.

As a result, we will find a "demographically divided world" that will have enormous consequences for economies and societies, according to this study.

The research presents estimates from the

2021 Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors (GBD) Study

, a global research effort led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University's School of Medicine. from Washington.

This has measured current and future global, regional and national trends in fertility and live births.

In general, countries need to have a total fertility rate (TFR) of 2.1 children per person who could give birth, to sustain long-term generational replacement of the population.

The TFR of a population is the average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime, assuming they are produced at current fertility rates in her reproductive years.

"We are facing astonishing social changes throughout the 21st century," warns the lead author, Professor Stein Emil Vollset of the IHME, as stated in a statement from

The Lancet

.

"The world will simultaneously face a 'baby boom' in some countries and a 'baby bust' in others."

Stein Emil Vollset tries to explain the paradoxical scenario facing humanity: "As most of the world faces serious challenges to economic growth from a shrinking workforce and how to care for and pay due to an aging population, many of sub-Saharan African countries with the most limited resources will have to grapple with how to support the planet's youngest and fastest-growing population in some of the most politically and economically unstable and heat-stressed health systems. - tense places on earth."

And finding such large differences has serious consequences on the distribution of resources, as co-lead author and IHME senior research scientist Natalia V. Bhattacharjee warns, "the implications are immense."

Since there is talk of a decline in fertility throughout the world: only six countries (Samoa, Tonga, Somalia, Nigeria, Chad and Tajikistan) will have fertility rates above replacement level in 2100. "These future trends in rates fertility and live births will completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power and will require a reorganization of societies.

So Bhattacharjee does not hesitate to point out that "global recognition of the challenges around migration and global aid networks will be even more critical when there is fierce competition for migrants to sustain economic growth and as the baby boom in sub-Saharan Africa continues at a good pace.

The authors warn that national governments must plan for emerging threats to economies, food security, health, the environment and geopolitical security caused by these demographic changes that will transform the way we live.

Mariona Lozano Riera, sociologist and researcher at the Center d'Estudis Demogràfics (CED) of Catalonia, as reported by SMC, warns about the result, "we are facing increasingly aging societies" and its consequences, "for example, the sustainability of public pension systems and the financing of welfare states".

Lozano highlights the "silent transformation towards models in which there is a basic figure, everyone receives the same pension and the extras depend on private pension plans or established by collective agreements."

For Teresa Castro Martín, Research Professor at the Institute of Economics, Geography and Demography (IEGD) of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), the methodology of the work raises doubts due to the methodology.

Even so, it states, as stated by SMC, that "the study illustrates well the trends to be expected in the near future (2050) and a more distant future (2100): a sustained reduction in the fertility rate globally and in almost all countries This study estimates a decline in fertility worldwide, and especially in sub-Saharan Africa, faster than the United Nations. The Lancet study predicts that the global fertility rate will fall below the replacement level (2.1 children per woman) around 2030, while the United Nations forecast is that this will occur around 2050."

What are the figures that trigger alarms?

The global TFR has more than halved over the past 70 years, from around five children per woman in 1950 to 2.2 children in 2021, with more than half of all countries and territories (110 of 204 ) below the population replacement level of 2.1 births per woman as of 2021.

This trend is particularly worrying in places like South Korea and Serbia, where the rate is less than 1.1 children per woman.

But in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, fertility rates remain high: the region's TFR is almost double the global average, with four children per woman in 2021. In Chad, the TFR of seven births is the highest in the world. world.

In the coming decades, global fertility is expected to decline further, reaching a TFR of around 1.8 in 2050 and 1.6 in 2100, well below replacement level.

By 2100, only six of 204 countries and territories (Samoa, Somalia, Tonga, Niger, Chad and Tajikistan) are expected to have fertility rates above 2.1 births per woman.

In 13 countries, including Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Saudi Arabia, rates are even expected to fall below one child per woman.

In Western Europe the fertility rate will be 1.44 in 2050 and will drop to 1.37 in 2100. So Israel, Iceland, Denmark, France and Germany are expected to have the highest fertility rates, between 2.09 and 1.40 at the end of the century.

In the coming decades, the majority of children will be born in some of the most resource-constrained regions of the world, and more than three-quarters (77%) of live births are expected to occur in low- and middle-income countries. low for the future.

Fertility declines in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa are smaller, and the region is expected to contribute to more than half (54%; about 40 million) of the world's live births in 2100, up from 41% in 2050. and around a quarter (29%) in 2021.

Much of the projected decline in the global proportion of live births will occur in the other six superregions (falling, for example, in South Asia) from around 25% (32 million) in 2021 to 17% (19 million ) in 2050 and 7% (5 million) in 2100, but is projected to increase modestly in North Africa and the Middle East (from 9% in 2021 to 11% in 2100) and the high-income super region (8% to 10 %).

How does it affect our country?

For the Spanish case specifically, "the problem is not so much the lack of workers as the low productivity of the Spanish economic system," explains Lozano.

The CSIC professor delves into the peculiarities of Spain: It has a labor market that is very biased towards sectors with low productivity and little added value, such as construction, and there is very little investment in R&D.

"Currently we have the most educated young generations in history, but they are generations that have suffered several economic crises."

Lozano also describes that "these young people have a very temporary labor market and very low salaries, so their contributions are also very low. Therefore, it is true that the demographics are not very good to sustain the current pension system, but is not to blame, but rather the lack of political action and the structural conditions of the Spanish labor market aggravate the problem.