The Next 100 Years

t h e p o p u l at i o n bu s t 
It has been generally accepted in recent decades that the globe was facing a 
severe population explosion. Uncontrolled population growth would out­
strip scarce resources and devastate the environment. More people would 
require more resources in the form of food, energy, and goods, which in 
turn would lead to a rise in global warming and other ecological catastro­
phes. There was no disagreement on the basic premise that population was 
growing. 
This model no longer holds true, however. We already see a change tak­
ing place in advanced industrial countries. People are living longer, and be­
cause of declining birthrates there are fewer younger workers to support the 
vast increase in retirees. Europe and Japan are experiencing this problem al­
ready. But an aging population is only the tip of the iceberg, the first prob­
lem presented by the coming population bust. 
People assume that while population growth might be slowing down in 
Europe, the world’s total population will continue to spiral out of control 
because of high birthrates in less developed countries. In fact, the opposite is 
true. Birthrates are plunging everywhere. The advanced industrial countries 
are on the cutting edge of the decline, but the rest of the world is following 
right behind them. And this demographic shift will help shape the twenty­
first century. 
Some of the most important, advanced countries in the world, like Ger­
many and Russia, are going to lose large percentages of their population. 
Europe’s population today, taken as a whole, is 728 million people. The 
United Nations forecasts that by 2050 it will drop to between 557 and 653 
million, a remarkable decline. The lower number assumes that women will 
average 1.6 children each. The second number assumes 2.1 children. In Eu­
rope today, the fertility rate per woman is 1.4 children. This is why we will 
be focusing on the lower projections going forward. 
Traditionally, declining population has meant declining power. For Eu­
rope, this will indeed be the case. But for other countries, like the United 
States, maintaining population levels or finding technological ways to aug­
ment a declining population will be essential if political power is to be re­
tained in the next hundred years. 

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53
p o p u l a t i o n , c o m p u t e r s , a n d c u lt u r e wa r s
An assertion this extreme has to be supported, so we must pause and 
drill into the numbers a bit before we consider the consequences. This is 
a pivotal event in human history and we need to understand why it’s hap­
pening. 
Let’s start simply. Between about 1750 and 1950, the world’s population 
grew from about one billion people to about three billion. Between 1950 and 
2000, it doubled, from three billion to six billion. Not only was the popula­
tion of the world growing, but the growth was accelerating at an amazing 
rate. If that trajectory had continued, the result would have been global ca­
tastrophe. 
But the growth rate has not accelerated. It has actually slowed down dra­
matically. According to the United Nations, between 2000 and 2050 the 
population will continue to grow, but only by about 50 percent, halving the 
growth rate of the previous fifty years. In the second half of the century, it 
becomes more interesting. Again, the population will continue to grow, but 
only by 10 percent statistically, according to other forecasters. This is like 
slamming on the brakes. In fact, some forecasts (not by the UN) have indi­
cated that the total human population will decline by 2100. 
The most dramatic effect will be seen in the advanced industrial coun­
tries, many of which will experience remarkable declines in population. The 
middle tier of countries, like Brazil and South Korea, will see their popula­
tions stabilize by mid- century and slowly decline by 2100. Only in the least 
developed part of the world, in countries like Congo and Bangladesh, will 
populations continue to increase until 2100, but not by nearly as much as 
over the past hundred years. Any way you look at it, the population explo­
sion is ending. 
Let’s examine a critical number: 2.1. This is the number of children 
that each woman must have, on average, in order to maintain a generally 
stable world population. Anything above that number and the popula­
tion grows; anything below, the population declines, all other things be­
ing equal. According to the United Nations, women had an average of 
4.5 children in 1970. In 2000, that number had dropped to 2.7 children. 
Remember, this is a worldwide average. That is a dramatic drop and ex­
plains why the population continued to grow, but more slowly than be­
fore. 

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54
t h e n e x t 1 0 0 y e a r s
The United Nations forecasts that in 2050, the global fertility rate will 
decline to an average of 2.05 births per woman. That is just below the 2.1 
needed for a stable world population. The UN has another forecast, based 
on different assumptions, where the rate is 1.6 babies per woman. So the 
United Nations, which has the best data available, is predicting that by the 
year 2050, population growth will be either stable or declining dramatically. 
I believe the latter is closer to the truth. 
The situation is even more interesting if we look at the developed re­
gions of the world, the forty- four most advanced countries. In these coun­
tries women are currently having an average of 1.6 babies each, which 
means that populations are already contracting. Birthrates in the middle tier 
of countries are down to 2.9 and falling. Even the least developed countries 
are down from 6.6 children per mother to 5.0 today, and expected to drop 
to 3.0 by 2050. There is no doubt that birthrates are plunging. The ques­
tion is why. The answer can be traced to the reasons that the population 
explosion occurred in the first place; in a certain sense, the population ex­
plosion halted itself. 
There were two clear causes for the population explosion that were 
equally significant. First, there was a decline in infant mortality; second 
there was an increase in life expectancies. Both were the result of modern 
medicine, the availability of more food, and the introduction of basic pub­
lic health that began in the late eighteenth century. 
There are no really good statistics on fertility rates in 1800, but the best 
estimates fall between 6.5 and 8.0 children per woman on average. Women 
in Europe in 1800 were having the same number of babies as women in 
Bangladesh are having today, yet the population wasn’t growing. Most chil­
dren born in 1800 didn’t live long enough to reproduce. Since the 2.1 rule 
still held, out of eight children born, six died before puberty. 
Medicine, food, and hygiene dramatically reduced the number of infant 
and childhood deaths, until by late in the nineteenth century, most children 
survived to have their own children. Even though infant mortality declined, 
family patterns did not shift. People were having the same number of babies 
as before. 
It’s not hard to understand why. First, let’s face the fact that people like 
to have sex, and sex without birth control makes babies—and there was no 

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55
p o p u l a t i o n , c o m p u t e r s , a n d c u lt u r e wa r s
birth control at the time. But people didn’t mind having a lot of children 
because children had become the basis of wealth. In an agricultural society, 
every pair of hands produces wealth; you don’t have to be able to read or 
program computers to weed, seed, or harvest. Children were also the basis 
for retirement, if someone lived long enough to have an old age. There was 
no Social Security, but you counted on your children to take care of you.