Is the Population Bombing? Why Immigrants Will Empty the Boomers’ Bedpans

For decades I’ve thought about how some day, when Baby Boomers are in their twilight years, the borders would have to be opened in order to have enough people to empty our bedpans when we’re in nursing homes. I just couldn’t imagine there’d be sufficient staff to take care of the needs of this generation as their turn on the circle of life came to a close.

As it turns out, there has already been a large influx of immigrants staffing nursing homes today. Meanwhile there is another variable at play, a historic decline in our global population.

This weekend I was listening to a discussion with Nick Eberstadt about this topic and although I was aware that some European countries were seeing population declines, I had no idea how global it was.

For the first time since the Black Death (bubonic plague) in the 14th century, the world's population is poised to decline — not because of war, famine, pestilence, or disaster, but due to sustained below-replacement fertility.

 

Since the 1300s, global population has grown roughly 20-fold through steady (if uneven) growth, as birth rates consistently exceeded death rates. Today, however, global health and longevity continue to improve overall, but fertility rates are now falling below the ~2.1 births per woman needed for long-term population stability. Eberstadt suggests the world may already have crossed into net below-replacement territory.

 

When I went to college, the “big thing” was quite contrary. Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 The Population Bomb warned of explosive growth and mass starvation. Because of the Vietnam War, colleges were overcrowded because being a student was one way to get a draft deferment. How this impacted me personally was that some of the required 101-level classes were filled, so they created a catchall class called Zero Population Growth. I wrote the required papers, but never bought into the Ehrlich narrative. In hindsight the class was a classic example of academics telling us what to think instead of how to think.

 

It was a theory presented as fact. What was missing was that science, technology and free markets could solve the food issue and other issues as they arose, because that is the nature of Capitalism. See a problem, use your brain and imagination, and profit from solving the problem. 

 

The new reality is the opposite: fertility collapse, not overpopulation. This is a voluntary, peacetime phenomenon driven by cultural, economic, and social changes in childbearing patterns — described as “entirely new” in human history. Here are some stats that show how pervasive the issue is.

 

East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan)

By 2022, populations in all these countries were already declining. Regional fertility is about 50% below replacement — approaching or below 1.0 birth per woman in places like South Korea, Taiwan, and large parts of China. What this means is that each new generation of newborns is roughly half the size of the parental generation.

 

In China specifically, the one-child policy (1979) was relaxed in 2016 so you could have two childre, but births dropped by about half afterward anyways. Eberstadt sees this as a “massive vote of no confidence” in the regime — people aren’t having more children despite policy changes and incentives.

 

India

Overall fertility has fallen to sub-replacement levels. In Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), fertility dropped to around 1.0 birth per woman by 2021 — lower than in major German or Italian cities. This transformation occurred in roughly one lifetime, from roughly 5 births per woman in the mid-1970s to current low levels.

 

Europe (including Russia)

The decline has been occurring for half a century. In Russia there are 17 million more deaths than births since the fall of the Soviet Union. In the European Union (27 countries), births fell from 6.8 million in 1964 to just under 3.7 million in 2023.

There are fewer births in France today than in 1806 (during the Napoleonic era). As a result, much of Europe is now a “net mortality zone” (more deaths than births), with the gap widening.

 

Latin America, Caribbean, North Africa, and Middle East

There’s been a broad decline in birth rates across all these regions. Iran and Turkey, too. 

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Broader Implications 

The decline is widespread and rapid on a historical timescale. East Asia and Europe are already experiencing absolute population shrinkage.The interview cuts off just as it appears to note that only limited parts of the world (likely sub-Saharan Africa) remain above replacement — setting up the follow-up segment I haven’t listened to yet.

Eberstadt frames this as a profound, under-appreciated turning point in human history: the end of centuries of growth and the start of an “Age of Depopulation,” driven by choices around family size rather than external catastrophes. The tone is measured but urgent, emphasizing how counterintuitive this is for those raised on overpopulation narratives.

 

Ironically, in the midst of Europe’s population decline amongst native Westerners, Ayaan Hirsi Ali draws attention to the growth of Islamic immigrant culture by means of both immigration and reproduction. Did you know that over the past two years the #1 boys name in England and Wales has been Muhammad? That's a whole 'nother story.

What are your thoughts on the world's population decline?

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