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Shrinking states: are we on a path to depopulation?

Shrinking states: are we on a path to depopulation?

Science Weekly vor 1 Jahr

How should we be thinking about population decline? In episode one of a two-part series, Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dean Spears, assistant professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin, and to political demographer Dr Jennifer Sciubba, presi

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The fertility rate in England and Wales has fallen for the third
year in a row. It is a story that is being repeated all over the
world, with two thirds of the global population now living in
countries with below replacement level fertility. Low fertility
rates have become a talking point on the political right, with Elon
Musk claiming that population decline is an existential threat to
the future of humanity. But for others, the timescales involved are
too vast to start worrying about now. So how should we be thinking
about population decline? In episode one of a two-part series,
Madeleine Finlay speaks to Dean Spears, assistant professor of
economics at the University of Texas at Austin, and to Dr Jennifer
Sciubba, president and CEO of the Population Reference Bureau, to
find out what has happened to global birth rates, and how
governments are trying to tackle the fall. Help support our
independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod