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Population Decline — Facing an Inevitable Destiny?

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Fertility Rates and Population Decline

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life ((PSFL))

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.

in the multitude of people is the king’s honour; but in the want of people is the destruction of the prince.

(Proverbs 14: 28)

the most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country is the increase in the number of its inhabitants.

(Adam Smith 1776, An Enquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, p. 55)

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Authors
  1. David Coleman
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  2. Bob Rowthorn
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oxford, UK

    Ann Buchanan

  2. Population Research Institute, Finland

    Anna Rotkirch

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© 2013 David Coleman and Bob Rowthorn

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Coleman, D., Rowthorn, B. (2013). Population Decline — Facing an Inevitable Destiny?. In: Buchanan, A., Rotkirch, A. (eds) Fertility Rates and Population Decline. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137030399_5

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