by DAVID BROWN | CLEARNFO.com | October 24, 2014

It is important to understand two concepts when thinking about the world population. The fear mongers would have you believe that the growth rate is linear or exponential in an unstoppable upward trend until the masses of humanity consume all the world’s resources. This is just wrong-headed when you don’t consider fertility rates and the necessary lag time for women to reach child bearing age. The facts are that while population in total may be increasing at the present, the rate of growth is decreasing in most countries (see URL link below).

Just to keep a population at a zero growth rate you must constantly replace the people who are dying from old age, illness, accidents, wars, etc. This replacement rate is generally considered to be 2.1 for developed countries and 2.3 for underdeveloped countries.

So in developed states we need a fertility rate of about 2.1 children per woman and in less developed states we need about 2.3 children per woman just to stay at zero growth.

Now, babies don’t just pop out immediately so you have to wait until the woman is of child bearing age plus nine months. This is a lag of say 20 years. Additionally, if fertility rates are below the replacement rates of 2.1 or 2.3, the shrinkage of the population will not be noticed for many years but when it is noticed the drop is dramatic, sudden and can feed on itself for generations. The unintended consequences of low fertility rates: 1) not enough young people to support the elderly; 2) aging work force; 3) necessity to import more fertile immigrants; and 4) resultant changes to the culture and standard of living.

The current fertility rate for the USA and Australia is 1.9 and for the UK and France is 2.0; China is 1.7 and Canada is 1.6; all below the necessary 2.1 to maintain zero growth.

The average total fertility rate in the European Union (EU-27) has been calculated at 1.59.

Most fertility rates are down world-wide
Source of data: The World Bank Fertility rate, total (births per woman)
  Demographic Winter