Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service
The United States is edging toward population decline as birth rates fall, the population ages, and immigration slows, removing the country’s longtime demographic safety valve. Under lower-immigration scenarios, the U.S. population could shrink as low as 226 million by the year 2100, according to data from the US Census Bureau. This trend mirrors a global shift already reshaping Europe and East Asia. Two-thirds of humanity lives in countries with fertility below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per family. By 2100, populations in some major economies will fall by 20 to 50 percent, based on UN projections. Speakers at the ACom briefing discussed the factors leading to negative population growth; the impact to the economy, including a shrinking labor force; and possible implications for the environment.
Dr. Ana Langer, Director of the Women and Health Initiative at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Professor Emerita in the Department of Global Health and Population pointed out that the decline in population is caused by a complex interplay of structural problems. US surveys show that increased female participation in the workplace, high childcare costs, reproductive health issues, the difficulty of balancing work and family, climate change, and anxiety about future uncertainty are all significant factors contributing to the continued decline in birth rates. Data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that families on average spend about 16% of their income on childcare for one young child, causing many couples to postpone or even forgo having children due to the heavy burden.
The briefing also used China as a case study. From 1979 to 2015, China implemented a one-child policy, and the birth rate dropped from over 5 to 2.7; even after the full relaxation of the two- and three-child policy in 2015, the birth rate still fell to about 1.1 in 2022, a record low. Later marriage and childbirth, high childcare costs, the pressure on women to juggle family roles in the workplace, and socio-cultural factors such as a less child-friendly workplace limit the effectiveness of policy incentives. Many countries’ subsidy policies face the same dilemma, with only a few countries, such as Sweden, able to maintain a fertility rate that is relatively close to the replacement level.
Anu Madgavkar, McKinsey Global Institute Partner pointed out that population decline will have a profound impact on labor force structure and the economy. Many countries’ working-age populations are approaching or have already reached their peak, and will enter a period of rapid decline in the future; conversely, the proportion of the elderly population continues to rise, leading to a significant increase in the dependency ratio, which will squeeze economic growth momentum. She predicts that population aging will reduce global per capita GDP growth by about 0.5 percentage points, and this slowdown, accumulated over the long term, will be enough to change the global economic landscape.
At the end of the conference, panelists unanimously emphasized that global population change is a complex issue spanning economics, environment, culture, and policy. The challenges and choices faced by different countries vary greatly, and the future immigration policy, fertility support measures, and socio-cultural changes in the United States will profoundly determine the direction of its population structure.
