The fertility rate is falling sharply in the U.S. and elsewhere, a trend with major economic and societal consequences.

Where are birth rates dropping? 
Almost everywhere. Two-thirds of the world's population now lives in countries where the birth rate has dropped below 2.1 babies per woman, the number needed to keep the population constant. Experts estimate that the global fertility rate has already or will soon drop below this so-called replacement rate. In the U.S., the birth rate stands at 1.62, down from 2.12 in 2007, and the population is expected to dip after peaking at 370 million in 2080. In Europe, the average birth rate is now 1.5; in East Asia, 1.2; in Latin America, 1.9. This trend has surprised demographers, many of whom have spent years worrying about an overcrowded planet. As recently as 2017, the U.N. was predicting that the world's population — about 8 billion today — would climb to 11 billion by 2100. But researchers at the University of Washington now expect the population to peak at about 9.5 billion in 2061 and then start falling. That would be the first such global population decline since the Black Death in the Middle Ages. "The demographic winter is coming," said Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, a University of Pennsylvania economist. 

Why are experts worried? 
Because a shrinking population means that more jobs will go unfilled, economic growth will slow, and programs like Social Security — which rely on the working-aged to pay in and support the growing ranks of the elderly — will be underfunded. Today, the world's richest economies have roughly three people of working age for everyone over 65, but by 2050 they will have fewer than two. The results of this shift can be seen in South Korea, which has the world's lowest fertility rate at 0.72 and where the national pension program is expected to run out of cash by 2055. Economic dynamism could also take a hit as populations get smaller and grayer. More people means more potential for innovation and growth — economists say it's no coincidence that the world's population, wealth, and standards of living have all soared in the 250 years since the Industrial Revolution. Research shows that patents filed by younger inventors are more likely to cover breakthrough innovations, and that younger electorates are more likely to support pro-growth policies, especially homebuilding. 

What's behind the drop? 
In the U.S., experts initially pointed the finger at economic insecurity, noting that the birth rate began falling after the 2008 financial crisis. But research published in 2021 found that almost none of the fertility rate decline could be explained by state-level differences in unemployment, contraceptive usage, student debt, housing or child-care costs, or numerous other factors. Instead, study co-author Melissa Kearney, an economist at the University of Maryland, suspects that both men and women are choosing to prioritize career development, leisure, and relationships outside the home, all of which "are more likely to come in conflict with childbearing." Similar trends could be playing out across developed and developing nations, with societies becoming increasingly tolerant of people having fewer or no children. But a different set of factors is driving the demographic crisis in China, where the fertility rate is now about 1.2 children per woman, down from six in the 1960s, and where the population is shrinking. 

How fast is China's population declining? 
It dropped by 850,000 people to 1.41 billion in 2022, the first such fall since a deadly famine in 1961. The population dipped again last year, by more than 2 million, largely a result of record-low births. If current trends continue, the population could fall under 800 million by 2100. That drop is a result of the one-child policy imposed by the Communist Party in the 1970s to slow population growth. That policy not only reduced the reproductive-age popu- lation but also made the one-child family a "cultural ideal," said Beijing-based journalist Helen Gao. Chinese authorities scrapped the policy in 2015, but the birth rate has not ticked up because grown-up single children "who enjoyed their parents' undivided attention" want their offspring to have a similar upbringing. 

Can birth rates be boosted? 
Governments are trying, but nothing has been particularly effective. Japan has experimented with child-care subsidies and stipends since the 1990s. Its fertility rate climbed from 1.26 in 2005 to 1.45 in 2015 — then sank to 1.26 again in 2022. South Korea has invested more than $270 billion in fertility initiatives since 2006, but its birth rate keeps declining. Developed countries could open their doors to immigrants from poorer nations with high fertility rates, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa. But many politicians who worry most loudly about their countries' demographic decline are also nationalists who prize native-born babies over immigrants. "We want Hungarian children," said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. "Migration for us is surrender." 

Are there other solutions? 
Because so many attempts to reverse this trend have failed, some experts argue governments should simply accept and plan for a world of smaller families and shrinking populations. Those who want more children should be supported accordingly, argues Sarah Harper, a professor of gerontology at Oxford University, but officials should also focus on how smaller populations could ease pressure on housing and land, and potentially slow climate change. "We live on a finite planet," Harper said, "and falling populations — while novel historically — have many advantages for the 21st century." 

A Hungarian 'baby bonus'
In the U.S., few lawmakers have addressed the country's shrinking birth rate head-on. Federal and state politicians have pushed to expand child-care subsidies and parental leave but have done so without explicitly setting more babies as the goal. Some Republicans, though, are embracing pro-natalist policies. Donald Trump last year called for "baby bonuses for a new baby boom," and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance has suggested that the government should cover the cost of childbirth. Their policies may be inspired by those of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a populist autocrat who has many fans on the American right. Orban's government provides three years of parental leave to mothers (but only five days for fathers), offers a lifelong exemption from income tax for women who have a child before age 30, and provides free IVF treatment for women (but not lesbian couples). Heterosexual couples who have three children can also get a subsidized minivan. The impact of these policies is not clear: Hungary's birth rate has climbed from an all-time low of 1.2 in 2011 to nearly 1.6 today, which is only just slightly above the European average.

New York City was just weeks away from reinventing itself for the 21st century, said Justin Davidson in New York magazine, but Gov. Kathy Hochul last week ordered "a screeching U-turn into the distant past." At the last minute, Hochul got cold feet and put an "indefinite pause" on a controversial congestion pricing plan that would have imposed a $15 toll on vehicles entering the traffic-clogged heart of Manhattan, starting June 30. The toll, proposed by Mayor Mike Bloomberg in 2007 and approved by the state legislature in 2019, would have made midtown streets safer, less polluted, and more pleasant for pedestrians and cyclists, and was projected to raise $1 billion annually to update the city's aging public-transit infrastructure. Cities with similar congestion pricing plans — London, Singapore, Stockholm — have seen 20 percent drops in traffic, improved air quality, and fewer traffic deaths. But congestion pricing was highly unpopular among suburbanites and outer-borough residents who prefer to drive into Manhattan to work, eat, or see theater. So "Hochul and a few other politicians panicked." 

Sorry, but "Americans do not much want to pay $15 to drive their cars anywhere" — even in New York City, said Kevin D. Williamson in The Dispatch. Hochul explained her decision by saying the toll "risks too many unintended consequences." No kidding. Don't all progressive, big-government projects have unintended consequences? Introducing an onerous new toll at this time "would be lunacy,"" said Andrew Stuttaford in National Review. In midtown Manhattan, post-Covid hybrid work schedules have devastated commercial real estate and the thousands of local businesses that cater to commuters. "New York City needs to avoid doing anything that might discourage people from coming to work (or to play or to shop) in Manhattan." 

National politics also played a major role in Hochul's decision, said Nick Reisman in Politico. In the 2022 midterm elections, New York Republicans flipped four congressional seats in New York City's suburbs — races that helped give the GOP narrow control of the House. Democrats want to regain those seats in November, and polls show that 72 percent of suburban voters "profoundly loathed" congestion pricing. Republicans were pointing to the $15 toll "as a cause célèbre of liberals out of touch with the working class." But "Hochul's decision takes the issue off the table" — at least for now.

After nine years hosting The Late Show, Stephen Colbert still gets a kick when he walks into the Ed Sullivan Theater, said Devan Coggan in Entertainment Weekly. The New York City landmark provides a daily reminder of just how far Colbert has come since his struggling-actor days in Evanston, Ill., where he slept in a friend's basement and paid his $50 rent by building futon frames for Northwestern students. They'd "fall apart in the middle of the night," says Colbert, 60. "People would call me, furious, and I'd put a handful of screws in my pocket and ride my bike across Evanston, fix their bed, and go home." 

His nights at the Ed Sullivan are far more enjoyable. "I love the fact that Cary Grant had his American debut on that stage in 1927. I know where Elvis was standing when he sang, and where the girls were sitting when the Beatles played." He especially loves the original, hand-operated elevator that David Letterman showed him just before retiring. Getting the elevator cab to line up perfectly with the floor isn't easy. "First time, I thought I did a pretty good job. Dave looked at it and goes, 'It's not up to my standards.'" Even now, nailing the landing is tricky. "There's a little bit of 'Use the Force, Luke.' Except the Obi-Wan in my head is Dave."