Global depopulation, caused primarily by plummeting birth rates, has caught policy makers almost flatfooted.
And with birth rates plummeting globally, countries now face a future of shrinking and ageing societies driven by an unrelenting collapse in fertility. Family structures and living arrangements previously imaged only in science fiction will become commonplace features of everyday life with an unprecedented collapse of procreative power.

These stark warnings of an era of pervasive depopulation were delivered at the 2025 Congress of the Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction (ASPIRE) in Singapore over the weekend.

Internationally respected political economist, Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt, is supporting an ASPIRE campaign advocating for policy changes that will encourage family building, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. Eberstadt is the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute where he is renowned for his demographic research and studies on international security. He is also a senior advisor to the National Bureau of Asian Research.

He told the ASPIRE Congress that between 1965 and 2015 the human fertility rate in births per woman fell by half and the “record breaking, jaw dropping” plunge has quickened in recent years in rich and poor countries alike.

Eberstadt said by 2023, fertility levels were 40% below replacement levels in Japan, 50% in mainland China, 60% in Taiwan, and 65% in South Korea. Sub-replacement trends are also evident in countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

“Labor forces will shrink all around the world due to the spread of sub-replacement birth rates with the old beginning to outnumber the young,” Eberstadt explained.

“Societies will have to adjust their expectations to comport with the new realities of fewer workers, savers, taxpayers, renters, home buyers, entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors, consumers, and voters,” he said.

“Dwindling workforces, reduced savings and investment, and unsustainable social outlays and budget deficits are all on the cards for today’s developed countries without sweeping changes in immigration, lifecycle earning and consumption patterns, and government policies for taxation and social expenditures,” Eberstadt added.

Meanwhile, he said that super-elders of 80-plus years of age are the world’s fastest growing cohort.

“By 2050, there will be more of them than children in some countries. The burden of caring for people with dementia will pose growing costs – human, social, economic – in an aging and shrinking world,” he said.

ASPIRE President, Dr. Clare Boothroyd, said in response to the disturbing fall in fertility rates, a new ASPIRE special interest group would be created to harness expertise in population sustainability.

She will co-Chair the group with acclaimed reproductive endocrinologist, Professor Dominique de Ziegler from Foch Hospital in Paris.

“Humanity is entering uncharted territory in the phenomenon of depopulation, and it is a challenge that must be embraced by governments, industry, the education sector and the public to push for family friendly policies that encourage family planning,” Boothroyd said.

The ASPIRE Congress at the Suntec Convention and Exhibition Centre in Singapore has attracted more than 2,000 leaders from various disciplines in assisted reproduction to address latest advances and knowledge in fertility health.

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