Transcription
Over the past few weeks, we have been trying to cover some of the biggest issues facing humanity. And this time, I think this is the biggest one of all. Um and because it's so big, we've brought in a superstar of charting here. This is John Burn-Murdoch. You will know if you know about charts, you know about John and the amazing stuff he does at the Financial Times. And we're going to talk about what I I mean I I think you think as well is is a massive issue, which is this chart. Uh the arc chart. Uh this is global population going back to the year zero. And John, I mean like the conventional wisdom for a lot of people when they look at this chart, this hockey stick, is this is kind of terrifying cuz we are facing overpopulation right now.
>> Yeah, I mean it's it's an extraordinarily rapid change there. You've you've gone from very low numbers to high in a in a short time span. There was in 1968, uh writer called Paul Ehrlich wrote a book called The Population Bomb, which really summed up that line of thinking that there are too many people and there are going to be even more too many. And this is going to be disaster.
>> And you're going to have mass famines and everything else. But the funny thing is, isn't it, that that if you look at projections about where we're heading in the next kind of few years, next few decades, have a look at what you see next. So that line goes up and this is taking you to to the end of this century. That line goes up, but then towards the end of this century, maybe even sooner depending on the different kind of projections, that starts to go down. And in a way that's maybe even more scary cuz we've never had to encounter anything like that as as a species before. And that's what we want to talk about, isn't it, cuz there's like a lot of different theses behind that. But it's a big deal, isn't it?
>> Yeah, it's it's hugely consequential, as you say. This is a 2,000 year span where we basically never seen this particular dynamic. And that's going to have impacts on the economy, society, all of it.
>> Okay. Well, let's let's go through. I mean, it's worth saying, you know, what what we might well be seeing off in the future as a consequence of what we're kind of seeing now in terms of fertility rates. You know, fertility rates is just this measure of how many children are being born. There's various different ways you can measure it. This is the kind of the famous one, the total fertility rate for various different countries here. You got France, the US, the UK, Italy. Um you can see that there's there's the the baby boom, the famous baby boom around there, kind of '50s and '60s. Um but there's main one main kind of trend here, which is if you look at the lines, they're basically kind of going down. And so to some extent, there's been this long-run trend as well as what we're going to talk about in a moment, which is what's happening more recently. But when it comes to what's happening more recently, Joe, I mean you've got you've got this chart that I I found totally striking here, which is the US and another country.
>> Yeah, so Mexico, the US's southern neighbor, significantly less economically developed. Historically, we would always have thought that poorer countries would have higher birth rates cuz so much of low birth rates was about economic development. But what we're now seeing, not just here but in other examples, is that poorer countries are suddenly seeing these very steep declines to lower birth rates than we see in rich countries. You you talk about this as countries getting old before they're getting rich.
>> Yeah, it's unreal. Mexico's a Mexico has a lower total fertility rate than the US. And like, who would have thought that was the case uh even a few years ago? So there's some real shifts happening here. Um and also worth saying we seem to be seeing patterns that are just universal around the world. So I mean the traditional again, conventional wisdom is it's high-income countries that are seeing a big fall in fertility. But I'll I'll run through some of your lines on this because it's not just high-income countries, is it?
>> Yeah, exactly. So high-income countries or if we zoom right into northern Europe, you saw actually a lot of stability in terms of birth rates from the '70s through to the about 2010. Then you see these declines. And if we
>> Down there, a bit more.
>> Exactly. And then if we step down, as it were, in terms of uh slightly development to East Asia, again, you see stability and then the steep decline over the last 10 years.
>> see really see it with East Asia. I mean, but you also see, obviously, there's that moment there, kind of extraordinary when you look at birth rates in Korea, China, other places like that.
>> Yeah, like you say, there's something happening more recently as well.
>> And it's not it's not just East East Asia, is it? So, that's middle income.
>> Exactly, step down to middle income countries. And again, it's not so much stability, but you had a gentle fall becoming a steep fall. And then you can step down further.
>> That's Latin America, similar story. And then uh Middle East and then North Africa again. So, so it is it's it's pretty much across the board.
>> Yeah. Sub-Saharan Africa as well?
>> Yeah, we'll we'll come on to more specific countries there. But yeah, even in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, you see this sort of steepening of a decline in the last 10-15 years.
>> So, that's the situation. And like it is a really big deal. And I think already, you know, if you assume that the big problem facing us right right now population-wise is all about overpopulation. Well, no, this is really big issue. And actually fewer people necessarily, up until recently at least, have been talking about it. John one of the exceptions, which is why it's great to have you here. But there's lots of different theses, aren't there, about what it could be that's pushing down fertility rates. And the the gist with our podcast, so the the one we've chosen for our podcast, mostly just as an illustration, not cuz it's the definitive explanation, is this kind of thing. It's car seats. And there's actually this really interesting paper out a few years ago, basically showing that as extra rules came in in America in particular, that raised the age at which people still had to be in their car seats, so children still had to be in their car seat, it potentially pushed down fertility rates. So, basically, the more children you have, the more you have to kind of shove into and you you will know if you have multiple children how difficult it is to get multiple car seats into a car at one time. Um the more of an impact that's had on fertility. They reckon, so this is number one kind of thesis, they reckon that if you were to change the age at which you had these mandates for car seats, so make it so it wasn't, you know, age eight that you had to have a car seat, Maybe it's age seven. Maybe it's age six. Maybe it's age five or age four. You can see, as those changes would come in, they think that the fertility rate would go up. And so, you would have tens of thousands more children being born. This is in America it looks at. And like I say, I mean, I don't know how completely convincing this is, but it's an illustration that there are various things, various impediments for potential parents that are potentially making it so they don't have more children. So, that's car seats. Another one is is housing, isn't it? And high house prices, John.
>> Yeah, exactly. So, if you think about the stage in your life you want to be at when you make big decisions like settling down, having family, having kids, it's when you've got long-term stability of your housing as well. So, what I did for this one was I looked at what's happened to birth rates in reality.
>> That's the fertility rate.
>> Exactly. This is number of average number of kids per woman in the UK since about 1997. This is what's actually happened. Then I looked at what would have happened if the rate at which people in their 20s and 30s own homes had not fallen. If that had stayed the same, because obviously people who own their homes have more kids than those who rent, what would have happened if ownership rates had stayed higher? And that gives you this blue line. And there's a a couple of interesting things there.
>> an impact, isn't there?
>> There's absolutely an impact, but I think there's a nuance. So, the point where these lines diverge is in the 2000s, where this was where fewer people were able to afford their own home.
>> Prices were going up a lot during that time.
>> Prices were going up. Income multiples were going up. So, as it became harder to get a home, birth rates went on this lower track. They would have been going on a higher track. But, I think it's still worth saying that over the past 10 years or so, both the actual and the counterfactual lines go down, which is to say that over the last 10 years
>> still coming down as well.
>> Exactly. So, over the last 10 years, even among our homeowners, uh birth rates are going down. Among renters, they're going down. Among people who not managing either of those things, they're going down. So, housing, if everyone could still own their own home, birth rates would be higher, but they would still have been falling for the last 10 years.
>> And worth saying as well, similar story in America. So, so the line That's the actual line. That's the all kind of what might have otherwise happened. The That one's higher, but they're still both going down.
>> Exactly.
>> Okay. So, that's the housing definitely seems to be part of the explanation, but maybe not all of it. Um there's another kind of issue, which is that, you know, in many countries around the world, people have these aspirations to have a certain number of children, but those aspirations aren't being fulfilled, right?
>> Exactly. So, what we see in many places is there has been a slight shift in aspirations or priorities recently. People maybe now say they want to have slightly fewer kids than they used to.
>> And that's what this line is showing you as
>> Exactly. That's your the ideal number of kids people say they want.
>> people what have been surveyed and asked how many children would you ideally want?
>> Exactly.
>> So, it's going down, but it's it's kind of, you know, around two-ish.
>> Yeah, it's it's down, but it's steady and it's around two. But then if you look at the actual number of kids those same people have,
>> Mhm.
>> it's lower and the gap is widening.
>> Yeah, so it's lower, but that line is going down even faster. So, that's South Korea and it's it's a similar story. So, this is the UK. Similar story, I'm guessing here as well.
>> Exactly. Like the the magnitudes of decline in both the ideal and the actual is slightly gentler, but it's still it's a big gap and a widening.
>> So, they'd like so they'd like kind of, you know, getting on for two and a half children, 2.4 children. The reality of what they're having is kind of more like under two. So, you're well below replacement rate.
>> Yeah.
>> And same story as well. So, that's this is France. Actually, France typically seen as as one of the stronger when it kind of higher fertility areas in in Europe, but again, still divergence, right?
>> Yeah. You still have a gap and you still have a widening gap. And for me, that's telling us that part of the that at least part of what we're looking at here is some friction or barrier that comes between the family situation people would ideally be in and the one they end up in.
>> Okay. Um so, that's that's really interesting. I I suppose one of the other questions is, is this about kind of other deep seated trends that we're seeing kind of around the economy? And I think this one's really striking cuz here we're looking not just This is not your fertility rate. This is looking at what the the amount of socializing that's been happening since 1999. That's the US, right?
>> This is the US. So, this is detailed time use diaries where people are asked to track what they're doing all throughout the day. And what you can do with that is see who were people doing things with. And so, it used to be the case, only 20 or so years ago, that 2/3 of people's free time was spent hanging out with other people. This is young adults we're talking about. Now, that has dipped recently below a half. So, there's been this big decline in just hanging out, getting together with mates or with potential partners. And then if we look at other countries, so in Europe, slightly different measure. This is the share of people who hang out with mates or boyfriends
>> Boyfriends or girlfriends.
>> isn't it? Same pattern. Decline over the last 20 years or so, especially in the UK. Well, the UK's really striking, isn't it? Yeah, it used to be that pretty much everyone would be getting together with their mates at least once a week. Now, about a quarter of people are not managing to do that.
>> So, it's it's kind of this is like the loneliness epidemic, isn't it? On top of And I guess, you know, the less time you're spending with people, the you know, often the fewer children will end up coming with that. Fewer relationships, fewer children.
>> Exactly. Like, relationships are downstream of lots of hanging out. Now, if you halve the amount of hanging out you're doing, which we see in Korea,
>> Yeah.
>> you're probably going to put downward pressure on relationships and kids.
>> Gosh, really really striking. Um and there's another thesis as well. I mean, I think this is one of the best charts you've ever made, if I may say so. This This is showing you, uh well, you explain it. It's It's about smartphones.
>> Yeah, so in this one, I've taken the total fertility rate, again, average number of kids per woman, in a range of countries from rich countries like the US, Australia, middle-income Mexico, Indonesia, to slightly poorer Egypt, Iran, and Senegal. And instead of having years across the bottom here, it's the number of years before or since smartphones really took off. So, that's that's smartphones, basically.
>> Exactly. And you know, of course, smartphones didn't take off overnight. It was a it was a gradual process, but this is as best as I could manage when smartphones took off in each place. So, UK, US, Australia, that's sort of 2007, 2008. Mexico, Egypt, that is happening about 2012, Senegal 2015.
>> Okay.
>> So, up in in the decade up until that period, rates were fluctuating, but they were they were relatively stable.
>> Exactly. Whereas if we now draw in what happened after smartphone usage really took off in each of these countries, you see this now sort of synchronized decline. You see it in Australia, you see it in Senegal, you see it in the US. Again, not it we can't say that it is definitively this, but that is a striking sort of coincidence of these things.
>> It's really striking. And so, I guess what the kind of the implication there is more smartphone use, less socializing, um maybe the housing thing as well. Who knows the causality of it all, but put it all together and it's all maybe part of that recipe.
>> Yeah, exactly. And with with phones the theory generally is that part of this is about social media as well, which of course was suddenly exploded with smartphones. So, that could mean that it exacerbates how people feel about slower moving crises like housing, for example. So, suddenly now we're all talking about it. Uh it could also mean that the content of social media is maybe more about your own self-actualization or material consumption, that kind of thing, which again maybe pushes against settling down and having kids.
>> So, smartphones as well potentially substituting for the kind of face-to-face interactions, which is part of socializing, which might well lead to kind of relationships, which might lead to to children.
>> Exactly.
>> It's really it's really striking. Well, thank you so much, John. It's been it's been fascinating to talk about this. And we'll have more on these big issues facing the world. And of course there is more on this particular topic in our new podcast Stuff Matters with me, Ed Conway.