Population Decline — Facing an Inevitable Destiny?

Abstract

Birth rates have fallen below the level required to replace the population in almost all the populations of the developed world. Population decline already confronts almost all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and many Asian countries. Total world population may be declining before the end of this century. Despite that, it is a neglected topic in demography — its analysis and its consequences overshadowed by the problem of population ageing. This chapter shows that population decline is a diverse phenomenon. The process of decline and its end-product of a smaller population size have different consequences. Modest rates of decline may be manageable and scarcely perceptible. Smaller population size may be irrelevant to most aspects of political, social and economic welfare and beneficial for environment and sus-tainability. In the future, adaptation to it may in any case become unavoidable.