‘Everything is incentives, the rest is commentary.’ – Stephen Landsburg
The world’s fertility rate has crashed in the last few decades. Some selected examples from 1950 to 2021 are1: –
South Korea’s dropped from 5.72 to 0.82.
Italy’s dropped from 2.45 to 1.21.
Morocco’s dropped from 7.18 to 2.26.
Canada’s dropped from 3.31 to 1.46.
Ecuador’s dropped from 6.09 to 2.20.
New Zealand’s dropped from 3.49 to 1.62.
I cite a country from every continent, both emerging market and developed, to demonstrate the multi-regional distribution of the problem. No region on Earth is in good shape, fertility-wise. This is a crucial point that is evaded by many commentators, usually to then bemoan their own country’s lack of child care facilities, affordable housing or some other pet peeve. These are lies by omission.
It’s a curious phenomenon that a global problem with real-world civilisation-ending effects is so badly understood. I will select a recent well-attended example. In a 2025 Kurzgesagt YouTube video about South Korea’s demographic collapse, with over 10 million views2, most of the top-liked viewers’ comments cited a non-reason as a reason. It’s evidence of the lazy thinking of the modern world and provides a startling example of the ‘unwisdom’ of crowds. It behoves us therefore to be particularly careful in our analysis. A problem of this civilisational scale obligates a cross-examination of the assumptions and the counter-examples before identifying the actual cause.
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choose life.