Santander Wallaby explains why reversing the fertility collapse requires breaking capitalism’s grip on human life and restoring traditional values.
Humanity has entered an age of demographic retreat. In 2026, the global fertility rate has fallen to about 2.19 children per woman, slightly below the level required for population replacement. The world’s population will continue to rise for several decades because large generations are still passing through adulthood, but this momentum will not last. If present trends continue, the human population will peak at around nine billion in the 2050s and then begin to shrink. Fertility has been falling since its global high point in 1978, and the decline now reaches almost every country. Only seventeen of the 236 countries examined show even a modest rise. Low fertility is no longer limited to wealthy societies: Thailand has fallen to an estimated 0.87 children per woman, Colombia to 1.01, Iran to 1.35, and Tunisia to 1.45. Governments and international bodies have repeatedly underestimated the speed of this change. In a sample of thirty-seven countries, births in 2024 were already 1.65 million below the UN forecast published that same year. The future is arriving faster than the institutions built to manage it can understand.
