Its population in according to UN projections made in is Written by Anna North Published: March 11, The government has introduced a cash benefit and a tax break for parents of young children, and has invested in childcare centers.
Perhaps having exhausted more conventional approaches, current and would-be lawmakers have started getting creative: Authorities have hosted several singles mixers in an effort to get young people to pair up. If history is any guide, none of this will work.
No matter what governments do to convince them to procreate, people around the world are having fewer and fewer kids.
In the U. Today, the average American woman has about 1. In Italy, 12 people now die for every seven babies born. In South Korea, the fertility rate is down to 0. In China, after decades of a strictly enforced one-child policy, the population is shrinking for the first time since the s. In Taiwan, the fertility rate stands at 0. If not, what should lawmakers be doing instead to help societies adapt to a demographically changing world?
In many ways, the falling birth rate is a success story β the result of young people, especially women, having more options and freedoms than ever before. For example, women are better able to control their fertility than in decades past. The Dobbs decision and subsequent state bans on abortion may change that calculus in the U. Recently, however, declining fertility has stoked anxieties around the world, as leaders face down the prospect of slowing growth and aging populations.
