Demographic dividends: Russia plans to spend $53 billion to boost birth rates and longevity. Other advanced economies might want to pay heed. Stagnant or declining populations pose a risk to growth, especially for nations deep in debt.
The world is adding people on a net basis but is unlikely to reach the elbow-to-elbow levels imagined by science fiction authors. The population growth rate has fallen by 40 per cent since the mid-1960s and the United Nations forecasts a plateau of about 9 billion humans by 2050.
Many industrialized economies face a baby bust. Among those with zero population growth or outright decline are those responsible for a big slug of global GDP. In America, a popular immigrant destination and where big families can be reality TV stars, population growth has slowed sharply.
To some, less would be more - and not just at the beach. It might ease food-shortage fears and offer additional economic growth, at least for a while, since fewer kids would cut down on college education costs.
But fewer young folks eventually means fewer workers available to support the older ones.
By 2030, according to the Brookings Institution, the ratio of people over 64 to those aged 15-64 will be just over 30 per cent in the United States, nearly 40 per cent in Britain and almost 50 per cent in Germany and Japan. Paying those retirement benefits will put enormous strain on budgets.
It also goes beyond accounting. Economic evidence suggests older societies are less inventive and more risk-averse. Countries with lower ratios of workers to retirees score worse on indexes of entrepreneurial activity. Less innovation means less growth and higher debt.
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Keeping seniors working longer is one option and health advances should help. But raising fertility rates makes sense, too. Generous childcare benefits and even bonus payments have shown some success.
A more radical option would be to exempt parents with more than two kids from paying into national pension systems, since they’re often producing future workers on their own dime.
In any case, the more kids, the more brainpower available to challenge the limits to growth. While resources are finite, human ingenuity using them is not.
