What falling fertility rates are telling us – and where the silence leads

Across the globe, people are having fewer children – and having them later, if at all.

Fertility rates are falling in nearly every major economy, and not just slightly. In country after country, birth rates have slipped well below the 2.1 births per woman needed to maintain a stable population. South Korea now sits below 0.8. Japan, Italy, Spain, and China all hover below 1.4. Even in the United States – long a statistical outlier – births have declined steadily for over a decade, hitting a 30-year low during the pandemic.