Bad demographic news from New Zealand. Births fell to just 56,955 and the country saw a natural increase of only 19,071 which is the lowest since 1943. The total fertility rate also hit its lowest level in history, falling below 1.6.

https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/lowest-natural-increase-in-80-years/

It is likely births in the European Union in 2023 fell much further (by up to another 4-5%). Would not be surprised if they come in at around 3.725M against almost 3.9M in 2022. US births would be only around 150,000 less despite having more than 110 million less people.

https://x.com/shifty_coffee/status/1766820455757799468?s=46&t=4B1VZvcCmqy_LsZnd1cuig

My guess is secular/irreligious Iranians have a TFR of ~1.0 while religious ones have a TFR of~2.0. While this Iranian opposition poll almost certainly overcounts the irreligious and Zoroastrians if it is in any way reflective of ground truth then Iran’s current TFR of sub 1.6 makes perfect sense+will sink further.

If the Iranian government were to collapse(not that likely in the near term IMHO as they have survived countless serious violent uprisings over the past decade) fertility rate would drop like a stone as it did in the post Soviet Union in the 1990s but in Iran would be ROK levels.

The Dragon Year started in February 2024. If February/March sees the downturn continue or worsen this will be our first indication that China has moved away from Dragon Years being big birth years. An absolutely massive development & we will know one way or another pretty soon.

https://x.com/mark57758864153/status/1766411435582669176?s=46&t=4B1VZvcCmqy_LsZnd1cuig

🇹🇼👶Births in Taiwan in February 2024 are down~4.5% over February 2023. Not a great start to the Dragon Year. During the last Dragon Year(2012)Taiwanese births jumped 10%! If we see the same trend in March then we know things changed a lot in just 12 years.

If culture has changed that much then improving rock bottom fertility rates in Singapore, Taiwan, & the People’s Republic of China may have just gotten much harder. It could also be a clearer indication that more women plan on having no children at all.

https://www.moi.gov.tw/cl.aspx?n=17437

Serbia has demographically settled at a pretty decent place in comparison with most of its neighbors with a stable fertility rate. The country will likely see ~60,000 births this year & maintain a TFR above 1.6. In the Balkans it is only outperformed by Montenegro & Bulgaria.

In 2023 Slovakia saw just 48,627 births. This is the lowest level of births ever recorded in the history of the country. As recently as 1979 the country saw more than twice as many births (100,240). The Slovak fertility rate also fell below 1.5.

https://slovak.statistics.sk/wps/portal/ext/products/informationmessages/inf_sprava_detail/!ut/p/z1/rZJfb5swFMU_TR4dX4P5k0egCSRFLAkhaXiZbHBaRjBpYHTpp5_pMmltVKZJ84sv8u-ie-45OMUPOJWsKx5ZW9SSHdX3PjW_rqy57brEAXBDHeaL-zgKvJnmJwbevQHbcPkL8K0NgXkUxcnWXunU0HD6Z79tWKCe4wRgG4NHzWv_APC-P1pPYb5xlv56QQlQ46b_BkiH59_iFKeZbE_tE97XvGFPSEhUyANiZTsCVdTnSm2jkwI1pzPrLiPoGtGW6gabC5JzHVn5QUeUaQwxZjPEITM5MTORT3j_-1NW5HgP3NSJltmIc1tDNDeoopmO7AnJDG7mghP-Uc7tvL0c-OQ4gGMh8QKnBa_GL1k1hrGhaZQSy9JMkxANzN7R4tvzc-oo2bVsxY8WP_zWPYKmVVoz9PYilf5WVEpoLqr68cwOhRKImjor2FGqomebtijZCCQrjyy_ILWhTIzge8le64614iiUpPS9CX6Q2MpjF3x_EhLqWh8B-97zFGBs7oxtpC-n9ArM4qXmTKjv3a2_zJTLnmbHoakBkCvg-U5ArVAZE_oGzJ0gWU9Wug6OfgUGNpcOJ_VvM_gm3ivvrE-9IxbedYV4wYnsE3XE8T9GI4De2eF0DJn7P0N9qpIkqWz9gvwdKtfTdfDqRqr-CcZdyOU!/dz/d5/L2dBISEvZ0FBIS9nQSEh/

Suicide levels(particularly for those under 65)are perhaps the most important metric for societal health. When the Soviet Union’s decline began suicide rates quickly climbed,they then fell for a bit due to optimism under early Gorbachev before skyrocketing as the Union collapsed.

Well those 80% of Americans are correct. The influence of religion, family, & community are all declining as the influence of social media, celebrities, & corporations grows ever stronger. When family & community declines so does society.

Czechia seemed like a good example of a country that could have rising TFR with high irreligiously. But three things. 1.) they have been irreligious for a long time. 2.) their impressive TFR bounce back was very brief. 3.) Community and family were still relatively strong in many parts of the country.

Chinese marriages were up dramatically in 2023 by 12.4% over 2022. It marked the first annual increase in marriages in nine years and bodes well for an increase in births during the Dragon Year which began in February.

https://t.co/tKOrxDXsVt

Have said this a lot (but it’s important). Europe’s economic engines are sputtering out & may never restart. Germany had a catastrophic 2023 demographically. Even with a population swelled to 84.4M+ by immigration, TFR fell to the lowest level since 2009 at ~1.37.

Canada style mass immigration solutions don’t work. Immigrants with very low TFR simply push the problem to the right by 20-30 years and create a much bigger retirement crisis for our kids to deal with. Is that responsible?

Every once in a while I feel the need to comment on how much of a disaster our nations policy towards the Middle East has been for the regions Christians. Before the Iraq war there were around 1M Christians. Before the civil war in Syria 2M Christians lived there.

The Christian population in both countries dates back to the dawn of Christianity. Iraqi and Syrian Christians are as Iraqi and Syrian as one can possibly be. The US invasion was the beginning of the end of the Christian community in Iraq which plummeted from 900K to under 300K.

While Saddam was not good for Iraq, history shows us that what followed his ouster was worse than many could have imagined. It directly led to 15 years of destruction and bloodshed that utterly devastated Iraq and left its many communities(and the standing of the US)in tatters.

This was not an unforeseen calamity in fact the excellent book “The Vanishing: Faith, Loss, and the Twilight of Christianity in the Land of the Prophets” illustrates clearly that Iraq’s Christian community knew well ahead of the invasion that it would cause their destruction.

After a series of events targeting their community,from the sporadic assassinations from 2003-2007 to the Mosul Christian attacks of 2008 to the 2010 Baghdad Church massacre and culminating in the Fall of Mosul to ISIS in 2014,most Iraqi Christians decided to make a final exodus.

So Iraq’s Christians went from a situation where,under Saddam,they enjoyed protection and near-equal rights with Iraq’s Muslim majority to a situation(which was a direct result of the US invasion)where they became a hunted minority that could no longer live in their native land.

So in short our country’s policy replaced a brutal secular dictator with a lawless and failed state that allowed al Qaeda and then ISIS to flourish. Which brings us to Syria where history almost repeated itself.

In Syria the US (again willfully ignoring regional history and dynamics) intervened with horrific consequences for the country’s Christians. I strongly believe the initial uprising and protests in 2011 were authentic and brutally repressed its also clear it was quickly hijacked.

There were many foreign parties interested in removing the Assad regime. They backed Islamist and other armed groups to oust him. Like Iraq the Syrian Baathist government does much to guarantee Christians and other minorities have the same rights as the Sunni Muslim majority.

This created a situation where western supplied Islamist forces took on the secular and mainly Alawite Assad regime. Naturally the Christians sided with the latter as they were their only option for survival while the Islamist forces destroyed churches and killed minorities.

Due to the supply of small arms, ATGMs and some AD systems the islamists were at times able to seriously challenge the Assad regime and (for a time) took Christian towns and villages including Maaloula and Kessab and killed or forced the much of the Christian population to flee.

While the Assad regime eventually regained the upper hand and took back almost all regions except Idlib and border areas in the north the damage to the Christian community was done. A once large and ancient prewar community of 2M was gutted and less than 800,000 remain today.

Global population is expected to fall by the latter half of this century as global TFR falls⬇️replacement. This will mark the first global population decline since the Bubonic Plague Pandemic of the 1300s. This time due entirely to falling fertility rates.

https://t.co/VFZLVoqQ9A

According to the lancet study researchers estimate that by 2050, 155 of 204 (76%) countries+territories will have below replacement fertility. The number of countries and territories below replacement level is predicted to further increase to 198 of 204 (97%) by 2100.

The lancet study also predicts that while Sub Saharan African fertility rates will fall substantially (& most countries there will be below replacement by 2100) 50% of babies born on earth will be born there by 2100. This is up from around 25% of all babies born on earth today.

The study also looked at the pro-natal policies of various countries and found that they may help keep countries from falling to lowest low(below 1.3 TFR) fertility rates. Thus effective measures to slow the demographic collapse are incredibly important even if 2.1 unachievable.

Births in South Africa are falling fast. Would not be surprised in the slightest if TFR fell below replacement before 2030.