In The Population Bomb, published in 1968, Paul and Anne Ehrlich notoriously forecast that humanity confronted an imminent danger of mass starvation. This threat, they argued, came from the explosion in population. Today, however, people like US vice-president JD Vance worry about a shortage of people, as fertility rates plunge below the replacement rate. The Ehrlichs were mistaken about those looming famines. Is it possible that alarmists on the other side are wrong, too? Yes. People can get hysterical about babies. Why not relax and enjoy them instead?
The respected Our World in Data estimates global population at just 5mn 12,000 years ago, 230mn in the year zero, 1bn in 1800, 3bn in 1960 and 8bn today. As for the future, the UN forecasts a global population of 10.2bn in 2100. The world is clearly not running out of people. What then is the problem? The answer, as I noted last week, is that in many countries, fertility is now below — and in some, such as China, far below — replacement. Of the major regions of the world, the exceptions are south Asia and Africa.