new study projects that global fertility rates, which have been declining in all countries since 1950, will continue to plummet through the end of the century, resulting in a profound demographic shift.

The fertility rate is the average number of children born to a woman in her lifetime. Globally, that number has gone from 4.84 in 1950 to 2.23 in 2021 and will continue to drop to 1.59 by 2100, according to the new analysis, which was based on the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2021, a research effort led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. The study was published Wednesday in the journal the Lancet.

“What we are experiencing now, and have been experiencing for decades, is something that we have not seen before in human history, which is a large-scale, cross-national, cross-cultural shift towards preferring and having smaller families,” said Dr. Jennifer D. Sciubba, a demographer and author of “8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World,” who was not involved with the new research.

  • stringere@leminal.space
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    9 months ago

    This just in: making the world a better place for a few at the expense of the many does not inspire people to want to bring new people into the world.

    • azimir@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      We need about 75% fewer people. I’d rather that we hold the ecosystem together while we gradually depopulate by just not having as many children instead of having climate change kill us off by famine and drought.

  • WalnutLum@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    As populations collapse, private childcare facilities are going to be less and less viable, and so the prospect of even being able to have kids, for those that want them, is going to rapidly fall on the government’s ability and willingness to support families.

  • Aniki 🌱🌿@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    Religion tells you to multiply endlessly because, some reason.

    Science tells you maybe that’s dumb for a whole lot of reasons.

    God isn’t real. Cellphones are. Science wins.

  • ef9357@lemmy.sdf.org
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    9 months ago

    Which is why US Republicans are forcing birth at any cost. They don’t care about the child once it’s born. They only want to ensure their spawn have enough minions to keep said spawn in comfort.

  • VargVikernes@eviltoast.org
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    9 months ago

    HOT POCKETS COPE CHUCK’S CHUCK CHUCK FEED SEED SUCK SNEED’S SNEED’S ON LEMMY CITY SLICKER JANNIES SEED SEETHE HOT POCKETS JANNIES HOT POCKETS JANNY JANNIES SEED DILATE CHUCK ON LEMMY SEED CHUCK SEED HOT POCKETS ON LEMMY SEETHE SEED CITY SLICKER FEED HOT POCKETS CITY SLICKER SNEED’S CITY SLICKER JANNY COPE CHUCK’S ON LEMMY ON LEMMY I CAN’T SUCK CITY SLICKER AND COPE FLOYD SUCK SEED

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    9 months ago

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