Global fertility decline is a structural reality, not a blip — 64 countries had already passed peak population by 2026, and the trend is irreversible for many. South Korea and China could see populations more than halve by century's end, while the U.S. only avoids decline because of immigration. Cut that immigration, and America loses 130 million people by 2100.
Not only is world population decline now structural, the fertility collapse is happening fastest where nobody expected it — middle-income countries like Colombia and Thailand are cratering below 1.0, and the U.N. is still lowballing the crisis. Actual birth registries show the U.N. overshot 2024 births by over 1.6 million across 37 countries. World population likely peaks around 2056 at nine billion, three decades earlier than official projections admit.
The Case for Chilling Out About Birth Rates...
The West's Demographic Math No Longer Adds Up
There is a 50% chance that the peak human population before 2100 will be 9.84 billion, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
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