Ideas for reversing the collapse in global fertility, the greatest challenge of our age. Humanity is precious.
HT to many great demographers and data analysts.
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For more than forty years, Okinawa has had far higher fertility than any other prefecture (Stone, 2024).
Most previous forecasts of how population would impact climate assumed that carbon emissions would continue at the same rate indefinitely.
In Spain (TFR 1.12), big hurdles include a huge fraction of young people living with their parents (driven by relatively poor employment for young people), the high share of housing that is small apartments, and declining faith among the young. 2/13
First, a bit of history. 
Unlike its neighbors Korea and Taiwan, Thailand with a per-capita GDP of just $7000 never got to get rich before facing ultra-low birthrates.
In recent years, Chile has been wracked with protest. In 2018, there were some 151 feminist protests across the country.
First is religiosity. Some 50% of South Dakotans rate religion as very important in their lives, well above the US average of around 37%.
The most important way to solve the fertility crisis is to educate young people on how crucial it is to get started early on family. Achieving financial and career success may take a long time, but family can't wait very long! 2/4
We've known for a long time that GDP and GNI don't fully capture how the people of a country are doing.
America's first three centuries produced the fastest sustained growth the world has ever known, as the US reached 76 million people by 1900. Most of this was due to high birthrates, not immigration!
On Halloween 2022, in the Itaewon District of Seoul, a crowd crush killed 156 people and shocked the country.
Intuitively, it feels like more people should mean less for everyone. That is how most natural ecosystems work. We learned in school how the population of the rabbits (the resource) crashes when the population of foxes (the consumer) grows.
It is no secret that the United States currently has a housing shortage that is contributing to low birthrates. The relationship between house affordability and fertility can easily be seen in maps.
It's not just adoptions to the US. This is a worldwide phenomenon. International adoption is almost impossible now.
There is no question that the competition between work and family is fierce, leading some to suggest that capitalism itself is incompatible with healthy birthrates.
When asked this week about falling UK fertility, PM Keir Starmer had a hearty laugh. "What can you do?" he asked.
In 2015, the fertility of the Nordics averaged 1.76 births per woman, similar the 1.84 level of the US. 
A study of 4 million Swedish men and women found that parents with children generally live longer than those without, and those with two children generally live longer than those with one child. 2/6
Mongolia's pro-motherhood culture stands out on a fertility map. Fertility in Mongolia has consistently been 2-3 times(!) higher than neighboring areas in recent years and it has been increasing over the past 20 years, even as its neighbors have seen birthrates plunge! 2/8 
China's one-child policy was finally ended in 2015. One impetus for its ending was the uproar over the forced abortion of Feng Jianmei in 2012, after graphic pictures went viral in China. 2/11 
For much of the 20th century, fertility rates in Canada were higher than in the United States. But now the fertility rate in 🇨🇦 is 23% lower than in 🇺🇸, which itself is at an all-time low.
