Lord Ashcroft: Birth rates are crashing around the world, we need to acknowledge the scale of the problem and address it

Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is an international businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. For more information on his work, visit lordashcroft.com

For the first time in the modern era, humanity is entering a “below-replacement level of fertility” – this refers to a population’s birth rate that is lower than the number of children needed to be born to maintain a stable population.

Globally, we are approaching a rate of 2.1 children born to every woman. If that does not sound concerning, then it should.

More worryingly, the United Nations (UN) predicts that global reproduction will continue to decline for the remainder of this century and reach a “below-replacement level of fertility” of 1.8 by 2100.

Population decline affects everything.  Fewer children, for example, will bring school closures and a surplus of teachers.  Hotels, restaurants, shops, factories and farms suffer similar threats as do their respective workforces.

A healthy economy requires a balance between working people and retirees. The aging of the population directly affects the vitality and dynamism of the economy.  An economy will not be competitive without young people building new homes, buying new cars, clothes, shoes, phones and computers.  Young and middle-aged people are the biggest consumers, and their work is the backbone of the economy.

The UN has concluded that two thirds of the world population lived in a “below-replacement level of fertility” countries in 2019. That was before the Covid outbreak brought a further slump in the birthrate.

Since then, the number of countries with “below-replacement levels” continues to increase, with less and less babies being born. The Lancet, the respected scientific magazine, reports that 110 countries out of a total of 204 were “below-replacement level” in 2021.

Today, in 2025, those numbers have worsened.  This includes major countries like the US and almost all European countries (including the UK), Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, China, India, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, etc.

Only recently has the wider public begun to relate to and accept these trends. Indeed, for many decades the mainstream assumption was that the world faced overpopulation.

In the 1970s, there were numerous alarming Malthusian analysis saying that the humanity’s doomsday was within 20 years, with the planet collapsing from too many inhabitants, with massive starvation estimated at the turn of the century. Thankfully, humanity is much better off than that doom and gloom prognosis.

Yes, the world needs to do much better defeating the hunger, but there is a measurable progress.  Humans are better off materially than ever in the history of mankind, with stunning technological breakthroughs.

Nonetheless, current population trends are much worse than the general public imagines.  Even with a large percent of people reconciled to the fact populations are falling, that realisation is insufficient until we accept the approaching phase from “population decline” to “population collapse” is nigh.

Where is the UK in all this?

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) stated in October last year that “the total fertility rate in England and Wales has fallen to its lowest level on record, with 1.44 children per woman,” with a similar trend in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Concern over our falling population is being recognised by the media. On June 30 2024, The Guardian newspaper ran an article headlined: “The baby bust: how Britain’s falling birth rate is creating alarm in the economy.”  Another article in the same paper from June 23 2024 stated: “The falling birth rate threatens a disaster so costly no politician dares to think about it,” adding “a demographic time bomb caused by an aging, shrinking population is looming for many western countries, so where are the policies to defuse it?”

Sky News reported on October 12 2024: “UK’s fertility rate is falling faster than any other G7 nation.”  The University of Oxford on December 10 2024 published an expert commentary with the title: “Why are people in the UK leaving it so late to have children?”

The Economist on May 23^rd 2024 published an article about global demographics saying: “Shrinking populations means less growth and a more fractious world,” adding that “politicians must act now to avert the worst”.

Germany, Austria and Estonia have recently joined the category called “ultra-low fertility rate,” together with Spain, Italy, Ukraine, Poland and Malta which are already there.  Fertility fell in Jamaica to a “below-replacement level” of 1.3, Bahamas 1.4 and Trinidad and Tobago 1.6. They are experiencing similar downward trend, with their Governments being increasingly concerned about this issue.

Latin America stands the next in line, with a major drop in fertility rate in countries like Brazil 1.6, Argentina 1.9, Columbia 1.7, Cuba 1.4 and Chile 1.5.  Major population decline in Latin America is a statistical certainty, where the low birth rate is coupled with decades of major emigration and a “brain drain” to the US and Canada.

The same thing is happening in the US. CNN reported on August 20, 2023: “US fertility dropped to record low, CDC [Change Data Capture] data shows”. The previous month the Wall Street Journal ran an article headlined “Why Americans aren’t having babies.”

As recently as January 15 2025, McKinsey Global Institute published an 82-page report called “Dependency and depopulation?,” adding the subtitle: “Confronting the consequences of a new demographic reality.”  It stated that “falling fertility rates are propelling major economies toward population collapse in this century.”

So, what can be done?  First, the key political leaders and policy makers must understand the depth of the problem and allocate sufficient resources to address the issue.  They need to allocate time and effort to the topic of population, as well as budget for policies and measures.

Second, more countries need to create a specialised Government agency or ministry that works every day tackling this problem.

Recently, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Japan and South Korea began to introduce such programmes and ministries. Other countries should not wait until total population collapse happens, and then react.  They should act now because the numbers and prediction models clearly show what lies ahead.

Third, a bipartisan approach is needed.  Both left and right of the political spectrum have shown initiative in this area. More of that consensus is required, since this is a strategic issue for the future of every country.

Furthermore, a combination of supplementary and supportive measures need to be introduced, such as affordable housing, day care and pre-school availability, infertility treatments, lower taxes for babies’ and children’s products.  These type of policies bolters mothers and families and by extension bolster birth rates.

Fundamentally, our societies and our culture need to value children, parenthood and family life.

Our lives and old age are enriched by children and grandchildren. As a society, we are strengthened and our own futures ensured by those same children.  John F. Kennedy once said: “Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see.”

That’s our collective legacy and so we need to act now before it is too late.