The tipping point: what happens when deaths outnumber births?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/may/02/what-happens-when-deaths-outnumber-births?referring_host=Reddit&utm_campaign=guardianacct
The tipping point: what happens when deaths outnumber births?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/may/02/what-happens-when-deaths-outnumber-births?referring_host=Reddit&utm_campaign=guardianacct
21 Comments
Population starts decreasing. It will oscillate around carrying capacity and then, hopefully, stabilize.
The fallacy of unrestrained economic growth is laid bare for all to see
**Submission statement:**
Hi r/Futurology, this is Lucy from The Guardian. We wanted to share yesterday’s long read exploring the potential future implications of the UK’s new population forecasts. It was revealed last week that the latest projections from the Office for National Statistics suggest that UK [deaths will outnumber births](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/28/deaths-projected-to-outnumber-births-in-uk-every-year-from-2026) every year from 2026 onwards, driven by falling fertility and the large, postwar “baby boom” generation living longer than previous generations, but now reaching later life. The population is still expected to grow, but more slowly than previously forecast.
This analysis begs the question, what will happen when deaths eventually outnumber births? How will this demographic shift change the fabric of British society, and how will governments and communities adapt?
*From our story:*
Many developed nations face similar pressures. What is striking, however, is how these trends have spread beyond the richest economies. In many middle- and lower-income countries, fertility is falling despite more limited economic development. Parts of Latin America, as well as countries such as Jamaica and Thailand, and states in India including Tamil Nadu and Kerala, have fertility rates comparable with – or lower than – those in Britain.
“There are countries that will grow old before they grow rich,” says Dr Paul Morland, a demographer and author of *No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children.*
All this marks a shift in how demographic change unfolds. Historically, falling birthrates followed rising incomes, urbanisation and education – the so-called demographic transition. But now fertility is declining more rapidly than economic development, driven in part by changing aspirations and social norms.
[You can read the full story for free here.](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/may/02/what-happens-when-deaths-outnumber-births?referring_host=Reddit&utm_campaign=guardianacct)
People think you can just ‘fix’ it by telling people to have more kids, but no country has actually managed to reverse low birth rates once they drop this far. Not even places throwing serious money at it.
It cannot just reverse it Fertility decline is not like flipping a switch. Its tied to urbanization, education, cost of living, delayed marriage and changing values. Every developed country that went below replacement level has stayed there.
I always hear that the argument about population decline is super complicated, filled with nuance, and has a huge number of factors that add to the situation. But literally 100% of the couples that I know who want to have more kids all say the exact same thing: they aren’t financially stable enough.
I feel like it’s a psyop. Somehow, the rich think can convince people that stability is never going to happen, so they just have more kids anyway. Because that type of mentality lets the people who benefit from population growth the most get a chance to double dip. It sounds ridiculous, but do you know any couples who feel stable and content with how many kids they have?
When population decrease:
Earth raw materals per person increase.
More food and fresh water availabe per person.
Less global warming.
Less space needed, more nature.
Less trafic jams.
Less unemployment.
Less migration.
More AI and robots needed to support elderly people.
Other tax system needed.
Overpopulation is the mother of most big problems of humanity.
Any system that depends on unceasing growth is unsustainable. At some point the population has to decrease if we want the planet to remain hospitable. And better we don’t try to test the limits so we still have many beautiful natural places to enjoy.
There’s going to be adjustments and adaptions to declining populations, though is that really a bad thing?
The human population went through tremendous growth the past one hundred years, growing from two billion to over eight billion.
To put that into context, it took hundreds of thousands of years for the human population to reach one billion in 1804, a little over one hundreds years to reach two billion in the 1920s. In the past one hundred years, we have multiplied that by four times.
A lower birthrate that doesn’t “*maintain*” the current world’s population doesn’t mean our species is dying or will disappear, it just means that the population will return to gradual levels instead of trying to maintain or increase that exponential growth.
Yes, this creates issues, such as a population that will be heavily older (until they die off) and an economic system that ~~relies~~ relied on a larger younger workforce to support the older population but we’ll be able to adjust to that, as we’ve done throughout history.
While the planet is able to sustain a much larger population. Plenty of natural resources, as well. The problem we have is our current system to support that large population. We’re a system based on mass consumerism and we create the artificial scarcity regarding meeting the basic needs for everyone.
Maybe this will usher in a new age where consumerism and working all the damn time isn’t our focus anymore and we move beyond that as a society.
The fake economy collapses as soon as we stop having future slaves to exploit the labour off without them even having to hit the work force.
I can’t even consider having kids, even earning a good salary the cost of living is so high that having a child would immediately put us below the poverty line.
Actually a good thing – however, it throws a wrench into our system of economics, which only thrives with ever increasing growth.
Who would have thought that uncontrolled housing costs and ever increasing costs to rasing a child will deter people from having big families
Ultra rich don’t need 8b people at their service once they have AI servants.
It will lead to eventual population collapse. The media/academia/elite is pushing this in the form of gender wars, anti-marriage and childfree messaging – They want everyone to think only about themselves, so that massive corporations can divide and conquer. Already, this plague is gravely affecting Western and East Asian countries. It is time to end the gender wars, end promiscuity, and bring back the stable family unit.
Why is everyone discussing this hypothetical scenario while world population keeps growing?
I expect a “technical” answer, if the decline continues to a critical tipping point that affects the wealthy, they will put a huge amount of money in developing artificial wombs.
Industrial scale birthing factories with large government run “orphanages” to raise replacement population.
It does not necessarily HAVE to be distopian … but will take a lot of monitoring from concerned people to keep from going bad.
When (in my mind not IF) this starts to happen, be prepared to fight for the industrial raised kids rights.
There’s far too many of us now. We’re ruining this planet with everything we do. Cutting our number down a few billion would be a good thing. If it occurs this way instead of some disastrous event, so much the better.
Predicting future demographics is a funny thing, because population groups who have higher birth rates grow in numbers and at some point this begins to affect the total. Not sure to what extent these models take this into account.
If deaths outnumber births, how can the population still be expected to grow, albeit more slowly? That doesn’t make logical sense to me.
The unsustainable system of globalised Hyper-Capitalism will begin to be negatively effected, and governments are throwing immigration at the issue despite they aren’t having enough second Gen children either.
The decreasing birth rates, primarily due to economic reasons, must be the wake-up call the elites need as a form of protest, that they need to overhaul our society for the better or continue allowing it to decline and be out-competed by other societies that are still growing in population.
Why do we need more people? Seems like overpopulation is killing the planet would t slowing down be better?