IMHO much of the original global decline in births can be explained by the spillover effect. During the 1960s+70s overpopulation alarmism drove many couples to ⬇️their # of children. This led others to follow suit, helping to explain plunging developed world TFR from 1969-1980.

The origins of the larger recent global decline (particularly in the developed world) is also due to the spillover effect. These is simply no longer a culture in most countries that says having large families is a societal good. Sure most governments now promote children but not large families.

Thus when people see that most in their community & country have smaller families of ~2 kids (and that having no kids has no real social or other stigma) they opt for smaller families too. In some places (like the ROK) the spillover effect leads to micro families being the norm.

So can there be a reverse spillover effect that brings back large families? Of course! & at some point (likely decades down the road) there will be. Those children of families which opted for more children will at some point predominate and the cycle will change.

TLDR version:Individuals have less control over family size than they think. If most of someone’s friends,family+neighbors have~2 kids then chances of them having a big family are small. The reverse is true as well. Culture drives this obviously (10% will go against the grain).

Germany is highly likely to have seen fewer than 700,000 births in 2023. Their TFR will be sub 1.4. The lowest levels for over a decade despite Germany’s population growing due to largish levels of immigration. Germany turning Canadian with high immigration and very low TFR?

The German SPD is going to go extinct due to demographics. Since 2000 party membership has fallen by ~half to just 365,000. Of those remaining members a whopping 57% are over 60 years old. SPD going the way Mason Lodges did in the United States.

During 2023, the population of Spain grew by 508,000, or 1.06%. The strong growth was mostly driven by immigration from Latin America.

This mass migration may lead to population implosion 30 years down the road (when there are no longer masses from Latam who want to emigrate to replace those retiring). Also if they have low TFR (& Spanish Natl TFR hovers around 1.0)expect aging almost as fast as South Korea.

Belarusian births crashing. Births were apparently ~65,000 in 2023 compared to the previous record low of 73,906 in 2022 & ~119,000 in 2015. The cohort giving birth now (which was mostly born from 1996-2006) is also very small. That is likely a major driver of the⬇️in births along with emigration of young Belarusians.

https://t.co/9gCgUlW3MB

🇬🇷👶Like most countries reporting births in January so far Greece is up on 2023. Births for January 2024 are up more than 4% over January 2023. Expect we will see increases year on year in most countries in 2024 as 2023 was almost universally bad in developed countries for births.

This graphic clearly shows how demographics will drive major economic change. China will lose a whopping 216 million working-age people between now & 2050. Europe to lose well over 50 million, Japan & South Korea a combined 30 plus million, & Brazil+Chile 5 million. The big gains will be in the Indian subcontinent, parts of the Middle East, & Africa. Seismic change.

Uzbekistan just missed 3.5 TFR in 2023. If achieved it would have been one of the only countries in history to have gone from below replacement TFR back to 3.5 (the US managed it in the 1950s). Uzbekistan now seeing births fall. Likely to never hit a TFR of 3.5 again:

Uzbekistan births January 2024 -5.6%
January 2024 - 71,930 births
January 2023 - 76,211 births

Spanish TFR hot rock bottom 1.13 in 2023. Some regions (like the Canary Islands & Asturias) are approaching East Asian fertility levels. Spain does have significant immigration from Latin America but that is likely to dry up significantly in coming years.

Graphic courtesy of @birthgauge.

Latin American true mass migration to Europe will never become a thing. IMHO migration to the entire EU from Latam will probably be less than 7M from 2024-2050. After all it has been less than~4M 1970-2023(mostly to Spain)vs~50M to the USA during that same period. Sorry Italy.

Latin America offers the only large region that can provide Europe with potentially decent amounts of ethnically (Spanish and Italian) and religiously (Catholic) similar migrants.

Once believed that Italy could induce a large number of Italian-Brazilians and Italian-Argentines to immigrate to Italy. No longer hold that view. Hundreds of thousands over the next few decades perhaps but certainly not millions.

Bolivia may be on track to hit replacement TFR by 2030. By that time Paraguay, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras will have hit replacement as well. & with that all of Latam will be below replacement.

Bolivia reported 199,263 birth registrations for 2023, down from 214,599 in 2022 and 304,895 ten years earlier. https://t.co/nPtaM4JWwZ

Not surprised but very discouraging and sad. US suicides topped 50,000 in 2023 to hit the highest level ever recorded. Just looking at the state of society truly not hard to see why. People are not hopeful for the future & this hits mental health and family formation.

https://t.co/al0yt48Yxy

While the total number of 2023 suicides in the United States is the highest ever recorded, the suicide rate is also the highest since the Great Depression & World War II. Rates have been ticking up since the Great Recession.

Decent birth data is in for the first ten months of 2023 for Brazil. The picture is mixed. Births are up just 4,000 over the same period last year. So essentially flat. Think TFR is likely to be around 1.53 or so when all births finally reported. Better than many initially expected.

Note: births look very low for November and December because they have not all been reported yet. Ignore those months for now. We will likely have the final figure for 2023 Brazilian births by April or May of 2024.

🇯🇵👶Japan just reported the lowest TFR in its history. As low as 1.20 for 2023 (so around the same level as Italy) but far lower than the previous low of 1.25 recorded in 2005 & 2022. Japan (probably the most oft cited country for demographic decline) now losing almost 1,000,000 people a year in natural decline.