For the past half-century, global policymakers have operated under the shadow of the “population bomb”—the fear that humanity would breed itself into starvation. According to renowned demographer and political economist Nicholas Eberstadt, that era is over. We are now facing the inverse crisis: a global population collapse.
In a wide-ranging interview on the Hoover Institution’s “Uncommon Knowledge” with Peter Robinson, Dr. Eberstadt argued that humanity stands on a demographic precipice unseen in seven centuries.
“Humans are about to enter a new era of history,” Eberstadt told Robinson. “For the first time since the Black Death in the 1300s, the planetary population will decline.”
Unlike the depopulation caused by the bubonic plague, which was driven by mass mortality, the coming contraction is entirely voluntary. Across the globe, nations are marching toward “below-replacement fertility”—a birth rate insufficient to maintain the current population.
The East Asian Collapse
Nowhere is this trend more acute than in East Asia. Eberstadt, who holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, highlighted the staggering speed of demographic contraction in the region.
“In China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan by 2022 every population was shrinking,” Eberstadt noted.
The situation in China is particularly dire. Despite the abandonment of the one-child policy in 2016, birth rates have plummeted. Eberstadt characterized this refusal to procreate as a form of social protest against the ruling regime. “What I think we see in that particular case is a massive vote of no confidence in the Xi Jinping dictatorship,” he said.
The strategic implications are profound. While Western analysts fret over a rising “Cold War II,” Eberstadt argues that the coalition challenging the Western order—comprising China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—is demographically brittle.
“The coalescing partnership among China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia is intent on challenging the U.S.-led Western order,” Eberstadt observed. “But the demographic tides are against them.”
He pointed out that China’s birth crash means the next generation “is on track to be only half as large as the preceding one—will unavoidably slash the workforce and turbocharge population aging.”
A Global Phenomenon
The fertility collapse is not limited to the industrialized West or East Asia. It has permeated the developing world, challenging long-held assumptions that economic development is the sole driver of lower birth rates.
“Sub-replacement fertility prevails in India where urban fertility rates have dropped markedly,” Eberstadt said. He pointed to the metropolis of Kolkata, where the fertility rate in 2021 was reported at “an amazing one birth per woman, lower than any major city in Germany or Italy.”
Similarly, the Islamic world is undergoing a silent demographic revolution. “Iran has been a sub-replacement society for about a quarter century,” Eberstadt noted, adding that Istanbul’s 2023 birth rate was “lower than Berlin’s.”
The only major exception to this global trend is sub-Saharan Africa, which continues to grow. However, even there, Eberstadt warned that human capital development remains “disappointing,” and birth rates are beginning to decline, following the global pattern.
The American Exception
The United States occupies a unique position in this landscape. While American fertility rates have dropped below replacement levels for the past 15 years, the U.S. remains what Eberstadt calls a “minor exception” due to its ability to assimilate immigrants.
“The United States remains the main outlier among developed countries, resisting the trend of depopulation,” he said.
However, he warned that this advantage is not guaranteed. The current political volatility surrounding border security poses a risk to the mechanism that has kept American demographics healthy. “U.S. demographics look great today—and may look even better tomorrow—pending, it must be underscored, continued public support for immigration,” Eberstadt cautioned.
The Mimetic Theory of Depopulation
Perhaps the most striking portion of the interview was Eberstadt’s explanation for why the world is stopping at two—or fewer—children. He largely dismissed economic determinism, noting that people in the past had far more children despite being significantly poorer.
Instead, Eberstadt pointed to a shift in fundamental human values and what scholars call “mimetic theory”—the idea that human desire is based on social imitation. As societies become wealthier and more secular, the cultural template for a “good life” has shifted away from family formation.
“People increasingly prize autonomy, self-actualization, and convenience. Children, for their many joys, are quintessentially inconvenient,” Eberstadt said.
He suggested that the decline in birth rates tracks closely with “what women want,” revealing a shift in preferences that no government “baby bonus” or tax incentive can easily reverse. “The most powerful fertility predictor ever detected: what women want. There is an almost one-to-one correspondence around the world between national fertility levels and the number of babies women say they want to have.”
A World of Empty Villages
Ultimately, Eberstadt argued that while humanity is adaptable and living standards may continue to rise even as populations fall, something profound is being lost. He described the coming era not just as an economic challenge, but as a spiritual one, potentially marked by loneliness and a lack of vitality.
“Even in a graying and depopulating world, steadily improving living standards and material and technological advances will still be possible,” Eberstadt concluded. But he left the audience with a haunting question about the nature of a society that chooses to fade away: “We’ve cracked the formula for abundance, and that may be necessary for the sort of fulfillment and flourishing of our species, but it’s inadequate.”