It is worth mentioning that the replacement fertility rate is not a constant but a variable. It is usually said to be 2.1 in industrialized nations (mostly due to more boys being born than girls). But in poorer countries like Afghanistan and parts of Africa it can be upwards of 3 (mostly due to high infant mortality rate).
I have not been able to find a current value for the global replacement fertility rate but according to a research paper (https://sci-hub.se/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:POPU.0000020882.29684.8e) it was 2.33 in 2003. Most probably it is somewhat lower today. But it is still eerily close to the actual global fertility rate meaning that sometime very close to now the global population will actually stop reproducing itself fully.
Wow that is a super important observation that I hadn't considered.
That means that there are even more countries below replacement than I thought and the globe really is on the cusp of being below replacement.
Our World in Data pegged fertility at 2.32 in 2021, dropping by about 0.03 per year. That would put us maybe at 2.23 in 2024. This might be the global replacement rate.
It really underscores how underappreciated this problem is It is hard to imagine that the globe is actually potentially below replacement fertility right now and will almost surely be by 2030.
It is worth mentioning that the replacement fertility rate is not a constant but a variable. It is usually said to be 2.1 in industrialized nations (mostly due to more boys being born than girls). But in poorer countries like Afghanistan and parts of Africa it can be upwards of 3 (mostly due to high infant mortality rate).
I have not been able to find a current value for the global replacement fertility rate but according to a research paper (https://sci-hub.se/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:POPU.0000020882.29684.8e) it was 2.33 in 2003. Most probably it is somewhat lower today. But it is still eerily close to the actual global fertility rate meaning that sometime very close to now the global population will actually stop reproducing itself fully.
Wow that is a super important observation that I hadn't considered.
That means that there are even more countries below replacement than I thought and the globe really is on the cusp of being below replacement.
Our World in Data pegged fertility at 2.32 in 2021, dropping by about 0.03 per year. That would put us maybe at 2.23 in 2024. This might be the global replacement rate.
It really underscores how underappreciated this problem is It is hard to imagine that the globe is actually potentially below replacement fertility right now and will almost surely be by 2030.