Iceland(~1.6 total fertility rate), Ireland(~1.5), France(higher than the U.S. at~1.64), Slovenia(just above 1.5), Moldova(~1.6), Bulgaria (~1.7), Serbia (~1.6), Montenegro (~1.8), Kosovo (~1.8), last places in Europe without awful sub 1.5 fertility. Lots of caveats to unpack though.

First Bulgaria is buoyed by a Romani population with a likely TFR of ~2.5 that makes is ~10% of births. Iceland & Montenegro both have far less than 1 million people. The relatively decent TFRs in Moldova, Serbia, & Kosovo are undermined by high emigration. Slovenia TFR⬇️fast. For France immigrant TFR provides a substantial boost but falls dramatically by the very next generation.

More targeted natalism that provides dramatically greater incentives for third & higher order children will yield greater benefits than most nations current policy of simply handing out money for all new births (which simply provides resources to parents having children anyway).

🇹🇭👶Births in Thailand for the first 10 months of 2024 are in and they are down 10.7%! Looks like ~480,000 births for the year. Lowest ever recorded and less than half the 1 million plus births seen from 1963-1983. TFR to almost certainly be 0.98 or below for 2024.

Germany, Italy, Spain, (& probably France before too long) are all staring into the demographic abyss. All may see their best & brightest youth flee as the tax burden coupled with shrinking opportunities makes staying untenable. The best years for the EU are well behind it.

& no, AI will not save them. They will be far behind East Asia in terms of using AI to mitigate the effects of aging. Why? Because of their regulatory burden (which to be fair is also meant to protect jobs). EU’s Aging societies unlikely to be regulation cutting & innovative.

France has the strongest demographics of the bunch but it is still a TFR of just ~1.62. In any case even with one of the highest TFRs in the EU by 2030 25% of the French population will be drawing a pension and by 2040 30%. This compares to figures of 20% and 22.5% in the U.S.

France also has the highest level of general government spending in the EU. There is very little scope to increase such spending. Reforms are also protested violently.

The phenomena of developing countries having low & very low fertility rates is really something. It’s also a very new one. Some examples include Costa Rica (TFR ~1.2), Sri Lanka (sub 1.5), Thailand (sub 1.0), Colombia (sub 1.45), Cuba (~1.5), Ecuador (~1.6), & Brazil (~1.5).

While developed countries face many of the same challenges of low fertility rates (rising pension aged population with less young people to pay taxes and work being amongst the most notable) they also have the resources to deal with many of them. The developing world does not.

Brazil is going to struggle more than most countries with its low fertility rates. Pension costs already high, GDP Per Capita (PPP) lower than Mexico, Thailand, or Armenia, & is currently suffering from long term economic stagnation (average growth rate of 0.6% in the decade to 2022).

Brazil will probably experience natural decline from the 2040s onwards as the country has been consistently below replacement since the late 2000s.

The South of Brazil will doubtlessly continue to attract people from other parts of the country and the wider region as well. The other parts of Brazil will be at a disadvantage (particularly the Northeast).

Vietnam+Thailand will dry up as a Japanese labor source in less than a decade. Brazilians & Peruvians are almost all ethnic Japanese from those countries & almost no more will be coming. The Koreans are a past legacy(in many cases FAR past)as well with very few moving to Japan in future.

Japan has 2 options. Accept loss of social cohesion,high trust society,& many of the other features that make Japan desirable & Japanese by opening up to mass migration outside of past sources (a VERY BAD IDEA IMHO). Or accept (& begin to mitigate against the effects of) degrowth.

Mitigation options include continued building of pronatal culture+rejecting anti natalist cultural influences & increasing societal prestige of large Japanese families. Focusing spending on improving young couples lives. Automation of jobs currently requiring low skilled migrants.

🇰🇪Wanted to do a quick post on Kenyan demographic predictions. Kenya’s TFR may hit replacement as early as 2035 & UN forecasts have long overstated Kenya’s eventual population. It won’t ever reach 100M. In fact, Kenya will probably top out at ~80M & fall to below 70M by 2100.

Kenyan TFR is already just 3.21. Extremely low for a country at their stage of economic development. By 2030 it will likely be 2.5. By 2035 2.1.

🇹🇿Tanzania has quite a bit further to fall & is in a very different situation from Kenya but will still have a much lower population by 2100 than the 300 million predicted by many just a few years ago. Tanzania if far likelier to never hit 200M & in fact stabilize at ~175M people.

The demographic situation from Argentina to Brazil to Colombia to Chile to Ecuador to Peru to Uruguay is shockingly suboptimal. The impact on the global economy in the decades to come is going to be absolutely colossal.

Simply don’t believe there is an AI or immigration solution for all these countries. There will be no conceivable way to fix the shortfall in the labor force absent a revival in the birth rate. Such a revival really is the only way.