World population to near zero growth by the end of the century: Pew Research

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

9. I recently read

Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson. It's excellent. They make a strong case that the planet's population is going to level out earlier and at a lower level than the prediction you're quoting. Already most of the world is reproducing well below the replacement level. There are a a number of countries in Asia and Africa that still has high birth rates, but in almost every single one those birth rates are dropping precipitously.

There are countries that already have declining populations. Japan is the one people talk about, but their population has just barely begun to shrink. Greece's population is down. So is Germany by a very small amount. Spain right now is holding steady but will begin to lose population by the middle of this century. Likewise Italy. China's population has levelled out and will start declining by the middle of the century. Hungary is already in a sharp downward direction. Likewise Portugal.

I'm simply looking at population pyramids for what I said above. Here's a link. https://www.populationpyramid.net/ Lots of fascinating stuff to look at and link to from that page.

Oh, and look at the disparity between males and females at some of those pyramids. People talk about how terrible the shortage of women is in China, but look at Saudi Arabia. One can only conclude that there is deliberate and very widespread something, either selective abortion or outright abandonment/murder of female infants, or that they ship many of them away, or maybe just don't count them. The pyramid for Saudi Arabia seems far less balanced than that of China.