![[OC] Global Birth Rates Are Falling Faster - Here’s What the Data Shows](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/ashjp3kna91g1-1536x1520.png "[OC] Global Birth Rates Are Falling Faster – Here’s What the Data Shows")
Across the world, governments are facing the same issue: birth rates are dropping faster, and population structures are aging in ways that strain national budgets.
The global fertility rate fell from 5 children per woman in 1960 to 2.2 in 2024, with projections suggesting 1.8 by 2100.
This demographic shift affects labor markets, pensions, healthcare, and long-term economic planning. In response, countries are implementing a range of policies:
- China: 3,600 yuan ($500) per newborn starting July 2025
- South Korea: A dedicated ministry for birth-rate recovery
- U.S. (2025): New “baby bonus” and “motherhood medal” programs
These policies vary widely, but they share the same goal: slowing population decline and easing economic pressure tied to shrinking younger populations.
Data Chart & Source Link: https://yodest.com/p/global-birth-rates-are-falling-faster
Tool Used: Excel
Posted by Yodest_Data
33 Comments
As far as I know there hasn’t been a single money for children scheme which has promoted birthrates to return to replacement let alone raise beyond that.
I think money is a factor, but it is very low down the list of things causing this decline in birthrates and the largest factors imo are all social in nature.
Nothing governments are willing to do will change the situation. It’s either import foreigners (UK strategy) or accept a larger elderly population (Japanese/Korean strategy). I’m curious to see Korea in 30 years, it will be interesting to see what happens considering they are ahead of everyone else.
Sure looks like it’s been below replacement level since 2008.
I am more surprised about India!
I know china is not having kids because the cost of having one is just too much, Social issues.
In the long run this is for the best. The current human population is a historical anomaly brought on by a near endless supply of food and advanced medicine. With current technology, we cannot sustain it without negatively affecting the environment to the point that the environment turns against us.
I wouldn’t have kids in America even with a SUBSTANTIAL monetary incentive.
School shootings (republicans won’t implement gun control), terrible education (republicans are gutting education), terrible healthcare (republicans have zero healthcare plans), climate change (republicans actively ignore), etc.
This country sucks.
>“motherhood medal” programs
[https://www.holocaust.org.uk/gold-mothers-cross](https://www.holocaust.org.uk/gold-mothers-cross)
Hell, it’s even gold to appeal to the aesthetics of the current administration.
Why would anyone want to rear a child in the state of this world currently? The past decade has been absolutely atrocious when it comes to public spending, public health, the overall economy, inflation… Like, even speaking from only the US pov, we just had a government shutdown that was because *checks notes* people didn’t want to spend money on affordable healthcare and thus millions lost the ability to feed their children effectively with SNAP.
Why would we care about having children when the government dictates when we can eat or have medical coverage and holds it over our heads to further their power struggle? It just doesn’t make sense.
So basically Africa is pushing the net birthrate up in modern times
I would very much like to have kids but it’s expensive. Just giving birth is expensive as an act but it would put us in a whole different lifestyle financially. When my parents had THREE kids including one severely disabled one they remained upper middle class. Having ONE would be a huge blow for us. I just can’t see it changing
Well! Sounds like it’s time to think about restructuring how we handle Labor markets, pensions, healthcare and long term economic planning as a society.
Housing and healthcare are too expensive to have kids. That requires more housing and healthcare. If only someone would do something about the price of housing and healthcare.
Yea noone wants to bring children to this dogshit world especially my generation. We dont have money or the mental capacity to deal with having a child
I mean ffs, its not hard to see why;
1- People have to be productive so much at work, they are out of energy when getting home. Why would you have a child that is basically another job on top?
2- People are already scraping by. If you have a head on your shoulders, you know you dont add a child on top of that.
3- You look in general at the world right now, do you really want a child that will grow up in the shitstorm that is still building up and about to explode?
Friendly reminder that this entire issue is largely nonsense.
1. shrinking labor is nuts to focus on at a time when automation is torpedoing whole industries, people are working later in life due to waves of pension collapse and there are communities full of migrants desperate for work (with more expected due to climate shifts). It is not for nothing that many of the areas worst hit by worker scarcities also have incredibly restrictive immigration policies and terrible workplace culture.
2. any shift in birthrates now is going to take 20+ years to manifest in the economy. If you want a more immediate solution to shifting budgets, maybe consider exactly how you are funding pensions, and how you can shift taxes to take into account the rising income inequality. But it’s easier to blame kids for not producing enough workers rather than the people making their life unaffordable. In that way, framing this as a problem in this way is deeply classist.
3. a touched on in point one, the fact that taking in displaced people is such an clean answer to low labor helps to reveal that much of the rhetoric about ‘we need to have more children’ is a racist dog whistle. Add to that the fact that the quickest way to raise birth rates is to restrict access to women’s health (which is the policy of people aligned to those pushing this issue the loudest) and you hit the racist, sexist and classist trifecta. It’s not about getting more workers, it about there being more ‘of us’, which gives cover to racist and eugenicist policies.
Shrinking birthrates is worth considering when talking about living standards and quality of life, but claiming it’s an existential threat ignores the many more pressing issues, like income inequality, climate change and ascendant fascist movements worldwide.
I’d go for having a child in the next couple of years if you could assure me that we would stop fighting wars and allowing people to go hungry and homeless.
I’d think about having kids if the country wasn’t the reigning champ in school shootings.
I’d have thought about having kids if it wasn’t nearly impossible to have a stable life in this country.
I’d have probably had kids if you didn’t have to enslave yourself to capitalism to live.
The billionaires should be responsible for making the babies, they’re the ones who can afford them and maybe will treat them better than they treat everyone else. I wouldn’t bet on it, but hope springs eternal.
Have they tried increasing the cost of living and laying people off to see if it’d fix it?
Too many people anyway, and I’d prefer a slow drop-off to massive death tolls.
good. let us wind down with dignity
I always see the same arguments about how to “fix” this problem: income/economy/income equality, government incentives and support, (or conversely, government authoritarianism like removing abortion access or enforcing “traditional” gender roles,) etc. What I really never see is anyone talking about how for the first time in human history, reproduction is a choice for more and more people daily, and when given the choice clearly a lot of folks simply decline, and those that do have kids, have fewer of them. The main problem here imo, is that we’ve created economic systems that require infinite population growth. We should really step back and try to figure out better systems, because people aren’t going to accept going back in time societally, and for good reason.
Billionaires are freaked out about this but to me that would be there would be more opportunity for the average person in the future compared to now
Bible thumpers who believe the world is at risk of under-populating which will lead to humanities collapse have entered the chat
Seems weird to not list Africa at all, when its fertility rate is still above 4.
[https://news.gallup.com/poll/697382/record-numbers-younger-women-leave.aspx](https://news.gallup.com/poll/697382/record-numbers-younger-women-leave.aspx)
weird wonder if this is related?
Not good for the economy but good for environment. The rate we were headed for overpopulation was not sustainable
This is probably why the billionaires controlling the US Government are going after women’s rights and lgbt rights so hard.
They want more baby factories. They don’t care people are making choices on “can I afford a child.” They want you poor with many kids to toss into labor that doesn’t exist because it’s going automated. Or straight into military to fight resources wars.
The whole thing is fucked and the 2024 election only cemented a very dystopian future. It’s like people watched or played games based on cyberpunk dystopias and thought: let’s live that life!
The native US birth rate has been below replacement levels since 2010. Immigration was making up the difference.
Now that immigration has been wrecked by this administration, this is no longer the case. Immigration is net negative for the year, meaning this year we will have a population drop.
This will be used by Republicans to justify more draconian measures to try and force women to become broodmares for the state.
_Motherhood Medal_ sounds like a participation award. Is it actually worth anything?
You are all acting like this is a bad thing.
With drones and robotics, there won’t be as much need for meat on the battlefield. This, and sometimes industry workers is the only reason a government promotes child birth rates.
Don’t give me that ‘failing infrastructure’ argument. Let it fail. Maybe it is time to rebuild it anyway. It obviously wasn’t built to last, and isn’t that great to begin with. And guess what, someone will do it. There will be jobs and money in rebuilding the infrastructure.
I bet global warming will be down.
Maybe people will both mind their own business and have more compassion for others if the place wasn’t so crowded.
Maybe the ‘it takes a village’ will be more popular and kids will get more care, nurturing and respect. Simply because they are more rare.
There world has been overpopulated for too long.
Well that’s one way to solve global warming
Good. Less people to feed
Costs too much money to raise a child. Society and government have attacked public education, refuse to fund child care, and medical treatment.
Society also insults and attacks parents who cannot afford to raise a child. Making it an embarrassment so people don’t have children.