OPINION - Falling birth rates and shrinking populations could be worse than climate change — we must prepare for demographic winter
Like an unwanted swallow out of season, the signs are that much of the world is entering a demographic winter with Britain, North America and Europe in the lead.
While the headlines, and also the village of Westminster and Whitehall, have been obsessed by the flows of migrants in the hundreds of thousands, little attention has been given to the dynamic of declining human fertility, and rapidly ageing native populations.
One of the exceptions is Ross Douthat, the outstanding conservative commentator of the New York Times. Last year he wrote that demographic “decadence” should; and its impact could be more devastating.
