The 2 Reasons Populations Are Collapsing in Developed Countries Around the World

170 years ago, the average woman in the U.S. had at least 5 babies. Today that number is less than 2 and declining. What changed?

More articles

• The Money You Save by Paying Extra in ONLY Years 1–3 of Student Loan Repayments
• What’s the Smart Play If You Borrowed $40,000 at 10% in Student Loans and Just Graduated College?
• Chat Threads — Student Loan Borrowers Taken for a Ride as Supreme Court Sides with Lenders
• Life Expectancy vs. Healthcare Costs in the U.S., Japan, Germany, etc. — whatever you’re expecting, you’re going to be surprised.
• U.S. Housing Price Predictions for 2023–2024
• Are Chinese People Smarter About Mortgages than Americans?
• The Social Contract Broke in the U.S. Years Later Than in Japan
• How the Al Dente App Eliminates the MacBook Battery Life Problem
• Review of the M2 MacBook Air — Too Slow Or Plenty Fast?

Photo by Charlein Gracia on Unsplash

Roadmap for this article

1. Introduction. Japan as a cautionary tale.
2. Total fertility rates are declining in other countries, too.
3. WHY have birth rates been declining?
4. The population collapse happening around the world is being driven by 2 main factors.

Part 1. Introduction. What happened in Japan?

Photo by Jezael Melgoza on Unsplash

Let’s go back in time to 1984 when the fertility rate in Japan was 1.81. This meant that the average Japanese woman was having 1.81 babies over the course of her life.

However, this was below the replacement rate for the population, which is around 2.10 births per woman.

By 1988, the fertility rate had dropped further to 1.66 births per woman. And this foreshadowed a substantial decrease in the Japanese population in the decades to come.