Study projects massive population loss globally due to declining fertility rates.

Kolkata (formally Calcutta) may be the largest city in the world by the end of the century. USA Today/Getty.

A new study projects massive population loss globally by the end of the century due to declining fertility rates. USA Today. The population in the United States is expected to climb to 364 million people in 2062 but will decline to 336 million by 2100. America's fertility rate, which is how many children a woman has on average is also expected to decline from 1.8 to 1.5, both of which are well below the replacement rate of 2.1. Globally the third world will likely continue to grow in population, but Europe and East Asia will likely decline. Having a declining population is very bad for the economy and may push countries to adopt immigration as a solution. 

My Comment:

A quick note on the source of this study. It comes from the medical journal The Lancet which has had a very loose relationship with the truth. They are politically biased and have had to retract more than one study recently. I don't agree at all with the policy they push but I did think that the general idea here, that population will decrease in many countries, is sound. 

This is obviously a huge problem as having a huge aged population with fewer younger people causes all kinds of issues. For one thing it puts a huge strain on elder care welfare programs like Social Security and Medicare. Without a bunch of young workers paying into the system the system can collapse. 

It also makes it very hard to fill jobs at the lower end of the income spectrum. At the same time higher wage jobs will not be available for younger people as the older generation will outnumber them so much that they can't make any headway. It's very damaging to the economy.

Of course the proposed solution, immigration, is even more damaging to a country. Having population growth is desirable, but not if you have to give up what your country is. Plus immigration leads to ethnic tension, higher crime rates and terrorism. It's a problem, not a solution, and would not make our fertility rate much better. 

I don't have a source off hand but one thing I have heard is that immigration is only a temporary solution for western countries anyways. As the 2nd and 3rd generations are born they tend to lose the fertility rate they had in their home counties. Why this happens is due to the overreaching culture and conditions having an effect. 

So why is the fertility rate crashing? Part of it is due to the various forms of birth control and abortion. Millions of people that would have otherwise been born do not now exist because of abortion and birth control. Accidental births are still common but are not anywhere near the rate they used to be. 

I've also heard that sperm rates (and testosterone) are declining for unknown reasons. I personally think that the sperm rate is more due to pornography than anything else, but it could be deeper than that and if that's the case we might be looking at a Children of Men situation where nobody can have kids

But I think a bigger factor is our economic system. It's not just the fact that woman are working outside of the house. That happened throughout history and it still resulted in pregnancies. It's not helping things that much but it's a minor factor. It is reducing the rate as women put careers first over families.

However, I think that our College education system is more to blame. It puts young men and women in the prime of their lives in a situation where they are extremely likely to have kids. But it also makes sure that they are in deep debt when they start working and usually won't have their lives together financially until they are in their early 30's. That only gives about a decade or so where having healthy kids is possible (you can have kids in your 40's but it's a lot harder to do and you have a much higher chance of having a child with developmental disorders). 

And the financial cost of raising children is obscene as well. In the third world today and most of the world in history having a bunch of kids is an asset, not a liability. If you have a bunch of kids you can put them to work and they basically will pay for themselves once they get older. Today, kids mostly can't work and the costs of raising them is sky high. Especially when you consider you are expected to at least help out with college or perhaps even have them live with you beyond the teens. 

I'd also say that the culture around dating is a major problem as well. The explosion in dating apps and the move away from long term relationships is obviously a major problem if the hook-up culture that it is replacing doesn't result in children. It's also massively increasing the costs of dating while at the same time making it more difficult for people to compete. I'd say it's a huge problem and the easiest thing we could do to bring the birth rate up is to ban Tinder and other dating apps and force people to actually meet organically. 

What can be done to fix this problem, outside of immigration? I am not sure. I don't think banning things like abortion and birth control are in the cards and I also can't see women leaving the workforce anytime soon. The College industry is likely a bubble and isn't sustainable so I could at least see that collapsing eventually. This would help somewhat but might not be enough to boost birthrates to replacement level. 

I think a cultural change might be the best way to go, but who knows if that's even possible at this point. In theory, a culture where having a big family is expected, where birth control and abortion are shamed and where women stay home would help things. But i can see the liberals reading this screaming about woman's rights and I just can't see the culture changing that much. 

The good news out of all this is that there are groups in America that do have large numbers of kids and they happen to be almost exclusively conservatives. All the people screaming "orange man bad" and "black lives matter" aren't going to have a legacy of children. Sure, people don't always vote the same way their parents do, but many do, and in a generation or two there will be a lot fewer far-left people running around due to their refusal to have kids.