Just last week, South Korea announced that their fertility rate has dropped to a mere 0.72 births per woman in 2023 — the lowest in the world.

Over in Japan, they've also been seeing more decline. Just last Tuesday, they shared that their births went down by 5%, hitting a new low of 758,631 babies, with their birth rate hovering around 1.26.

South Korea and Japan are among the roughly 90 countries where the population isn't growing on its own, without counting immigration. This club includes many places across Europe, the Americas (including the United States), and Southeast Asia, mainly because these more developed areas have access to contraception, more women are getting educated, and joining the workforce — the whole social and economic structure has shifted.

But it's a whole different ball game in the developing world, where higher fertility rates are still pushing up the global population numbers. Take Niger in West Africa, for example; in 2021, they had the world's highest fertility rate at 6.8, leading the pack ahead of Somalia, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In fact, out of the 33 countries where women were having four or more kids on average, 31 were in Africa that year.

In order for the world to maintain its population, women need to have 2.1 babies on average. Failure to do so will trigger a decline in national populations, as it has in South Korea and Japan already. However, if birth rate declines continue on their current trajectory, the global population will start shrinking in 2086, according to the United Nations.

Things are getting wild

#NewRules

Nature is returning, thanks to depopulation and human intervention

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