foreign your main concern has been the population bomb as you call it in your book what hope is there uh we've got to use political processes in the not too distant future the government will simply tell you how many children you can have and throw you in jail if you have too many I do know that at this time unless now we think of what America is going to be like in the year 2000 this increase in population and do something about it to stop that pressure we're going to reap the Whirlwind because look at what the year 2000 will be if if the present Trends continue our cities are going to be choked with people and they will be impossible places in which to live and the explosions will be even worse if we do not by Humane means limit our numbers then numbers are going to be limited by more famines and shortages the disaster will take the form of famine plague or War their Mankind's old companions fundamentally you just got to remember this there's no way out of the arithmetic there will never be seven billion people in the year 2000. and now a milestone for all of us on this planet today the United Nations declared that today the world's population reached 7 billion people that Relentless population thought just keeps on ticking and Ticking well if they kept such a clock in Italy it would be ticking backwards the government there thinks there are not enough Italians demographers warn that the shrinking population could drag the country into an unprecedented economic crisis dire predictions of an overpopulated planet have been with us for centuries what if they're just plain wrong alert the number of babies born in America last year falling to a 32-year low but there's already a population crisis setting major economies across the globe look at these numbers how do you explain this decline you've got cases like Japan where adult diapers outsell baby diapers the world's falling birth rate isn't on the list of major threats to Life as we know it but it soon will be taxes are destined to soar pension systems will become unsustainable while our Health Care Systems won't be able to cope with the ratio of all people to take care of compared to the shrinking number of taxpayers businesses will struggle to find workers to hire school closures will accelerate while social care will continually be sliced and they say it's an economic Time Bomb I'm worried about the birth rate most people think we we have like too many people on the planet but actually this is an outdated view I think that the biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse I want to emphasize this the biggest issue in 20 years will be population collapse [Music] foreign [Music] after the breakup I stopped everything from zero that's why I got very um principal very emotional because um you know when when you first know that your partner didn't want it's quite heartbreaking this is my story too he's drinking and all that okay not even here [Music] why are people having so few children the more I read about falling birth rates everything was negative you enter a downward spiral as you have fewer and fewer children you have fewer and fewer future mothers which in turn goes on and on and on and no Society in history has been known to come out of that spiral the speech population decreasing is going to speed up now you call it collapse accelerating and then common rebuttal is like well what about immigration like from where I started the birth Gap project in Cambridge Massachusetts in 2016 after seeing dinner for Germany showing their only half the number of children there now compared to 50 years ago population collapse what else fun topic as a lifelong learner I had been brushing up my skills on theater science my goal had been to find an explanation to one of the world's great Mysteries why did the number of children being born in Italy Japan and Germany fall so rapidly at the exact same time whether data can help answer that question or not one thing's for certain with this trend having spread across the entire industrialized world and Beyond we're all going to notice due to globalization a worldwide Cascade is shrinking economies will affect all nations including the US [Music] but it's not just economic issues societies with low birth rates are destined to have a burgeoning number of older people to support Humanity has never faced such a crisis for us a society with the size of people to experience continuous flying in the prosperous and peaceful time it's never happening in human history there's no precedence should we be worried about population decline population decline is a form of social change can government be a practical substitute for the family structure that we took for granted up until let's say like breakfast yesterday morning that's going to be really hard I think am I right that people aren't talking enough about this in my view incontestably or correct so why aren't they talking about it more well to some degree maybe people haven't been run over by this problem themselves yet do people talk much about falling birth rates I don't think that people talk a lot about this it's a minor problem I think are you worried about America's long-term low birth rates I don't think it's a terrible thing culturally birth rates have different rising and fallings are people worried about this about not having children worry about but is it really a problem is it bad for the country no is it bad for workforces we have robots we have much more automated work so why is it a problem what people usually don't think about it's a little bit counter-intuitive but what is unavoidable is massive graying massive aging of the society and so all of these places in the world which are under substantial below replacement child bearing for decade after decade are on a trajectory not only for shrinking but also for really massive population aging so you're shocked by hearing I was really shocked the professor told us that I mean our generation is decreasing so that we need to protect our older generation and he showed the statistics I'm really worrying about Japanese future it's not Journey let's look at Germany this is the map oh dear look at that I would not have expected this I was not aware of this not at all what's the impact of this huh understanding population Trends can be tricky partly because it takes decades for changes to play out initially low birth rates are almost undetectable except to maternity Wards but soon enough we'll find closing schools businesses that can't find staff to hire and then close because they can't find enough customers and meanwhile the cost of providing our older generations with Healthcare and pensions will continue to rise and Rise as more and more people live longer and longer to understand the scale of the problem we just need to look at the world's falling fertility rates and how many countries have fallen below the population Tipping Point demographers call this Tipping Point the replacement level when women on average are having two children that survive into adulthood today seventy percent of us live in countries below that Tipping Point and yet somehow our Focus has remained on fears of never-ending population growth statistic is a rock and roll star and in an era where the talk is a rapid population growth he uses hard data to try to communicate the opposite story here's a clip from his film airing tomorrow night on BBC Two up to eight and then it goes up to nine and then it goes here but see it's slowing down it's slowing down by the end of the century it's becoming more flat there and if I do no one could explain population Trends better than the lit hands roslings including wire total head count will increase for a while despite the number of children having peaked now this will confuse you because how can then the total population grow like this if the children doesn't increase where will all these adults come from and and to explain that I will show you the world population ladies and gentlemen in the form of foam blocks one block is one billion we have two billion children in the world then we have 2 billion between 15 and 30 years of age we have 1 billion 30 to 45 we have 1 billion 45 to 60 and then we have my block 60 years and older we are here on top so this is what we have today now what will happen in the future you know what happens to old people like me they die the rest they grow 15 years older and have 2 billion children these ones are not old time to die and then these ones grow 15 years older and they have 2 billion children this one die and the rest grow 15 years older and have 2 billion children and without increasing the number of children without increasing the length of life we have three billion people more by this big inevitable fill up of adults which will happen just when the large young Generations grow up Hans rossing's building blocks explained beautifully how the world's total population is going to fill up with older people and not children yet before this project I had no idea about low birth rates outside of Europe and Japan I'd say at the moment we can break the world down into two components if we oversimplify sub-Saharan Africa and everybody else if we take all of the rest of the world all of non-sub-saharan Africa we're already below the replacement level and we've been below the replacement level for a little while now barring compensating immigration no Society can survive long term below this replacement level Tipping Point and the farther down birth rates go the faster they will Decay or to use the correct mathematical term exponentially Decay Nations like Japan Italy and Germany with birth rates around 1. 4 children per woman will Decay by around one third per generation meaning that in two generations the underlying population will fall by over half and in three generations by seventy percent but it turns out ultra low birth rates go far beyond these countries oh without exception all industrialized countries developed countries have built in place and we know what happens with continuing below replacement fertility what's working pretty well now manifestly is going to be unsustainable a generation from now if you just do the arithmetic it's striking and there is no single explanation in in different contexts you have very different stories but the trends started around the same time in the early 1970s yes it's that's amazing the amazing thing and in the west this is attributed to the to the pill in Japan the pill was introduced in the early 1990s so it's interesting though that while Europe blamed the contraceptive pill for the Fallen birth rate it's not the case in Japan but yet it comes falling at the same time at the same time yeah it's so difficult to describe and it and it may be very different things in different places that are causing these changes female culture it's completely different like in Muslim context about one-third of babies are born out of marriage but in Japan marriage and childbearing US closely associated so it's very different and again there is something strange in Germany education is fully subsidized completely opposite to Japan it was education in Japan is very expensive so there are lots of contradictions as a statistician looking at Raw numbers if you just look at that coldly you'd say the probability that there's some common driving factor is very high thank you why is it in Japan many people have no children why are the populations going down why women having so few children are you worried about there being so few children in Japan now speak English there you go okay still really don't understand why Japanese people are having only 1.
3 yes yes I I don't know why well the weird thing is that many women want to have children but I don't know why um like the Korean Society is struggling with law personally young people has a maybe losing some expectations for the Bright Futures I think working long time is a very easy solutions you can so easily escape from such kind of discussions foreign [Music] we're talking about why in Japan population is going down because people don't get married people don't have children why why I don't know tax problems just from your perspective first of all I mean are you aware that in Northern Italy that there is a low birth rate is this a surprise to you why why here yeah I'm not really surprised about this yeah maybe the people think that they cannot give a good future to their children so I think having a career is not easily combinable with with children especially in in modern careers where you have flexible work hours which means no one checks on your hours but also no one caps your hours so you can work a lot everyone wanted his own phone why why is this happening I don't know I don't know maybe they think that's they can live and happy life if they have the children because they have to work work work work work just to have a baby you know after 50 years of unsustainably low birth rates countries in Europe and Japan are fast becoming inverted worlds with too many retirees for the shrinking workforces to support if we look at Italy for example in 2019 there were around 1 million people aged 50 who will be retiring in around 20 years time then if we look at the number of newborns who in around 20 years time will be entering the workforce to support these retirees they're less than half any large gap between a number of newborns and the number of people they will have to support into retirement is significant socially and economically given that these gaps are being caused by long-term low birth rates I decided to call any short Fallen workers birth gaps I wanted to show these birth gaps on a series of regional Maps first I colored any regions that did have more babies than 50 year olds green but in regions where there were too few children being born I used increasingly Dark Shades of Red with the darkest red meaning they're less than half the number of babies being born compared to the older people they would need to support and at the center of any region with a birth Gap I put a gaping black hole proportional to the drop in the number of children oh wow it's a big gap it's kind of scary yeah that's crazy wow so gosh that is Major isn't it it's like a shock it's for me it's like a joke what are we making with our future we are we are crazy yeah this is not good it's clear it's a very powerful transformation but now I want to show you let's jump to somewhere else Deutschland yeah Germany yeah I feel the same Wireless Trend only affected parts of Europe 50 years ago by the 1990s birth gaps had spread to every corner of the continent even Scandinavia are region known for its gender equality and parental benefits wasn't immune in Denmark a country that offers one year paid leave and free education the birth Gap had reached 30 percent there had even been a campaign do it for Denmark foreign [Music] but it's not only Denmark and this coveted part of the world in 2019 Ernest Solberg prime minister of Norway became the first Global leader to address her people on the birth Gap crisis foreign foreign Elementary School teachers across these countries are starting to notice the school leaders are talking about less kids coming in the next next few years so obviously we're gonna have less less classes and and less jobs for teachers do you think people should be talking about this more I think so yes because me as a young teacher I'm not I'm not thinking about this but maybe I should should do more some countries like the UK and France while following this same Trend had smaller birth gaps of less than 20 percent but what was most concerning with some of the larger countries in Europe some regions of Spain had 50 birth gaps while parts of Germany and Italy had 60 birth gaps meaning for every baby being born there there will be more than two 50 year olds to support into retirement in 2016 the Italian government decided it was time to step in Primo fertility day La Prima Journal nationality sensibilities they quickly found out that people don't like governments telling them to have more children meanwhile businesses are starting to notice by 2020 Italy's birth Gap had reached 56 percent and every country in Europe except Iceland had more 50 year olds than newborns but to find the world's largest birth Gap we need to look elsewhere South Korea is winning this race to the bottom with a frightening 69 birth Gap in other news latest data show South Korea's total fertility rate fell to a record low last year kimisong reports South Korea's total fertility rate fell to 0. 98 in 2018. the falling for two liter rate comes despite the Korean government's efforts to tackle the problem including subsidized Child Care leave free nurseries and cash statements with children becoming a thing of the past in South Korea a new form of parenting has taken over raising what they're calling the dog child these mothers and fathers are willing to spend no expense to give their dog children only the best dogs are like their children except they're a whole lot cheaper while in Japan there's even an organization that lets young people try out being a parent for a day [Music] unlike Europe where people have the shortest working weeks and longest vacations anywhere people in Korea and Japan are struggling with work-life balance and that makes having children an extra challenge we don't have any role model in a real world it's really rare to see how children are raised we are just really worrying about it we don't have specific image so the issue is in our mind I think I think in Japan Mary means end of life for the humans Japanese work a lot like for example until like two or three a.
m I think I'm kind of a woman who wants to pursue a career but I feel really pessimistic about it because I feel like I should keep up my career or my dreams for having children [Music] foreign differences in culture between Europe and Japan the world's first signs of ultra low birth rates emerged in both places at the exact same time and yet no one has found a connection it's hard to accept it's just one big coincidence [Music] foreign this didn't happen overnight the data has been there for decades what worries me is that for some countries that may be too late already even if the number of babies were to increase it wouldn't make any difference until they grow up and start working this feels like a trap a birth Gap trap we know you're more responsible for the doors of Denmark yes but actually it's uh Eva Long crane who is responsible for that campaign um let me see if she's there right now I appreciate it but she'll be here in around 15 minutes so we'll do it right here yeah yeah we can do it here so what was the inspiration for deciding to make this um at the time uh of this campaign there have been small stories in the serious newspapers not on front page but on page 10 12 13 that that this was a serious issue it's not a sexy topic really but we can make it sexy so yeah well you can yeah I can do it for Denmark why is this happening it seems that when my mom was a young mom her life certainly changed but not that that much and in our time it's more like this is a shift in your life that serious you have so many things you want to do you want to educate yourself you want to find the right partner you want to have fun so it seems that the time is never right I'm like kind of like not ready hell no hell to the no I'm not ready to have kids I've always thought about having kids I'm also not in a place where I'm like married or pregnant or thinking about getting pregnant um so maybe in a few years that'll be another discussion all of my friends that head down into their career none of them are married and none of them have kids everybody's just career driven so I feel so much pressure from my family and Kenny's family they're constantly asking us when are you going to have kids and just trying to explain to them like I just really want to establish my career first I'm still very much focused on like getting at a certain place in my career before thinking like my brain cannot even think about that yet I've always wanted to have children I've always wanted to have children while I was young but I'm not now let's do either of you want children yeah yeah we definitely do we've talked about it are you ready to adopt now ready to adopt in this particular Moment Like right right now now probably not do you what up kids that's the biggest question I've been asking myself and ever since we got married I've been constantly debating with myself on whether I want to have kids am I just blaming the environment honestly I don't know the answer am I going to regret this if I don't have any kids I had to go through the motions um and emotions of my life and I I think I had to do my career and do the marriage and get to the mental place of its time I don't want to be that Mom that misses my child's first steps because I'm away I want to wait until I can say you know I can't afford the time off it's fine so when would that be that's the crazy thing I don't know and now birth gaps are coming to America by 2020 the exact same trans or 39 states with more 50 year olds than newborns with New England Leading The Way with a 29 birth Gap America is starting to notice fewer babies born in America last year than at any time since Ronald Reagan that is what's not the birth rate is way way down it is has it been a surprise to you that low fertility is becoming an issue in the U. S it took a while for us to notice it took us a little while to catch on but now that we have I think people do find it worrying and justifiably so there's a lot of economic and public policy reasons that that's going to be a big problem for the US going forward you've got more and more older people retiring being supported by fewer and fewer and fewer actual people working who are in turn having ever fewer babies right it's an impossible situation right the good news for America is that because of immigration our birth rates stayed High long after everyone else has had fallen which means that we get a preview in a way that almost no other industrialized country does which means we can look at those other countries and say I don't want that what do we do the disturbing trend is that the fertility rate falling below the replacement level in other words the workforce becomes too small to support the growing retirees segment it's a very troubling Trend as you've said before we've seen it in Japan it's lean elsewhere who would have thought would open the show with the birth rate falling to the 32-year-old having started in Europe and Japan at the exact same time this trend has spread relentlessly across the entire industrialized world and Beyond yet the only connection I could find was a common anomaly foreign placement rate is when the average woman is having two children of course not all women are having two children some will be having one some having three and four and some for differing reasons having none in very simple terms if we exclude those having more than four children to get an average of two children per woman those having three and four should be in balance with those having either one child or none to get an overall birth rate of less than two it's a mathematical necessity that those having more than two are outnumbered by those having none or one the lower birth rates go the proportion of people having no children or one child must get greater and greater the conundrum was that one child families were proving hard to find across all of these countries I have a younger brother I have an older brother an older sister and a younger sister I have Brothers foreign I have a sister brother I have a four siblings two sister and two brothers and when I met those a little older I got the same response your two daughters is that correct yes certain one and satisfree well I have three kids myself for myself I have two children okay they don't understand my assumption had been that countries with low fertility rates would have many families with only one child and that assumption was held by other people too the reason Japan's population is declining of course is people are choosing to have smaller families but why could I not find these smaller families with only one child something wasn't right one of the golden rules of theater science is to use the most granular data possible to understand trends what I needed was an annual measure of childlessness but it simply didn't exist the aha moment came when I saw the UN collects data on the number of first-time mothers and the children they then go on to have for many countries matching this data with total fertility rate data allowed me to calculate the missing piece in our giant population puzzle the results connected everything in Japan in 1974 around half of women were having two children just over one in five was having three a similar number was having one and six percent were having four or more overall the average Japanese mother was having 2. 2 children and with only one person and 20 remaining childless the overall fertility rate for Japan was 2.
1 children per woman but somehow over the next three short years chalices exploded to reach one person and four yet the percentage of mothers having one two three two three or four more children hadn't changed at all this wasn't a shift to smaller families this was simply an explosion in childlessness wind the cloak forward to 1990 and childlesses in Japan had reached one in three women and yet the average children per mother had increased slightly to 2. 3 since 1990 this pattern has been locked in in Japan with almost no change to family structure or the one in three remaining childless even the proportion of mothers having four or more children has remained at six percent exactly the same as 1974. [Music] changes in demographics tend to happen slowly but in Japan in the summer of 1974 something startling happened until 1973 the country was booming and the number of babies was booming there was a New Concept around the concept of the modern apartment with kitchens flushing toilets and entertainment space apartment complexes were springing up all across Japan and with no end in sight to the country's economic renewal this Young Generation had little to worry about but the mood was about to change in October 1973 the global oil shock sent the country into a frenzy and the Young Generation that was just settling into their new modern lifestyle suddenly had to confront sharp price Rises and food and commodities and shortages of the basics and the data shows precisely nine months later across every prefecture in Japan the number of first-time mothers plummeted and would never recover childlessness for 1 3 heard of Japanese woman became the societal Norm [Music] Japan was hit hard by the oil shock it was the world's largest importer of oil at the time and across the entire country many young people decided it wasn't the time to become parents and we can see from the data this delaying of Parenthood meant that many never would [Music] across in Europe Italy is described by academics as having been the worst hit by the oil shock family structure in Italy in 1974 was remarkably similar to Japan on average mothers were having 2.
3 children childlessness was even less in Japan with only one in 30 people having no children meaning that the overall fertility rate was 2. 3 children per woman wind the clock forward only three years and we find just like Japan childlessness exploded from one in 30 people to one in five by 1990 one in three people in Italy were destined to be childless and by 2018 childlessness had reached two and every five Italians yet throughout this time just like Japan family structure hadn't changed at all but this story isn't about Japan and Italy across the entire industrialized world where we have data in recent decades there's been no change in family structure across these countries in the late 1980s the average mother was having 2. 4 children 30 years later that number is exactly the same and all of these nations just like Japan and Italy in the 1970s have transitioned to become childless Nations nations were one-third or more of people will be childless for life foreign is how these rapid Transformations align with major turmoil for South Korea it was the currency crisis of the 1990s that saw Charles's rocket to 45 percent for Germany the Fallen birth rates coincided with the 1968 student protests and while Germany is one of the countries that doesn't provide the data needed to calculate childlessness we can see they followed the same Trend as Italy and Japan but it's not just these countries the exact same Trend can be seen across Spain Portugal Austria Switzerland and Beyond for America and many countries around the world it was a 2007 financial crisis before the crisis the average mother in the U.
S was having 2. 5 children and only one in seven people were chalice yet just like other Financial crises around the world within a few short years chalices would rock it to reach one in three people and yet during the same time the average number of children per mother in the U. S increased from 2.
5 to 2. 6 the 2007 Financial meltdown was a global crisis and just like the US the transition to childlessness happened in Canada Malaysia Netherlands Costa Rica Ireland and Beyond [Music] with so many examples of crises around the world triggering high levels of childlessness and with no example of any society ever recovering this feels like a trap a birth Gap trap where it becomes a societal Norm to start families in their 30s when for many it simply won't happen I've been searching for the answer to the wrong question instead of asking why people are having so few children today I should have been asking why so few people become parents today it turns out there is no Trend towards smaller families people who do become parents are just as likely to go on to have two three four or more children as decades ago it's all about having the first child with childlessness having exploded so fast during times of uncertainty in so many countries this doesn't feel like childlessness by choice this feels like unplanned childlessness hello my name is Jody day and I'm a childless woman and I'd like to introduce you to my tribe this tribe has always been amongst us but what's different about it now are the numbers one in five women like me born in the 1960s turned 45 without having had children that's double what it was for our mother's generation it's up to one in four as what we consider the more family-oriented cultures like Ireland and Italy and even Macho Australia up one in three in Germany and Japan now whilst these numbers don't give us any qualitative information about why a woman might not have children a 2010 meta-analysis by Dutch academic Professor renska Kaiser would suggest that 10 of women who are childless are child free having chosen not to become mothers and 10 are childless for medical reasons including infertility so that leaves a whopping 80 percent of women without children childless by circumstance with those circumstances varying widely but often featuring the absence of a willing or suitable partner during our fertile years or even an unsuitable partner if you'd heard the heartbreaking stories I'd heard so a big reason why we're seeing more and more infertility these days is because of delayed childbearing as women's eggs get older it just gets harder to get pregnant imagine that these are eggs okay and this is a 20 year old so when a 20 year old comes in and we do an ultrasound we're able to see these 20 follicles I tell them this is great news you're 20. you have all these 20 eggs and this is for this month and next month you're going to get another 20 eggs except that when a woman is 20 not all her eggs are good for every five eggs that she has as young as she is for every five eggs that she has maybe three of them are good those are the orange ones and even a 20 year old as healthy and as young as a 20 year old hat is two of those eggs out of five might not be good this is a 20 year old this is a 45 year old you see how things have changed between 20 and 45.
