David Vance SubstackRead More
I was saddened but not that surprised to see that Japan’s demographic crisis has hit a horrifying new low, with its 2024 total fertility rate (TFR) plummeting to a record 1.20, down from 1.26 the previous year. Japan is going out of existence and it’s been like this for decades.
The latest numbers are brutal: only 720,988 babies were born, a 5% drop, while deaths soared to 1.62 million—more than two deaths for every birth!!! This isn’t just a statistic; it’s a death spiral for a nation already grappling with a rapidly aging population.
Young Japanese are shunning parenthood, citing bleak job prospects, a punishing work culture, and a cost of living that makes raising kids a luxury few can afford. Government efforts—cash handouts, childcare promises—have failed spectacularly. Tokyo’s fertility rate, at a measly 0.99, shows urban centers are becoming childless wastelands. Japan’s population, now 123.79 million, shrank by 898,000 in a single year. Projections are grim: by 2070, it could nosedive to 87 million, with 40% over 65. This isn’t a crisis—it’s a total demographic collapse. In a few generations, Japan will be an underpopulated hollowed out husk. Such a sad end to a great civilisation.
Across the Pacific, the U.S. isn’t faring that much better. Birth rates have hit a 40-year low, with the fertility rate hovering at 1.62 in 2023, dipping slightly in 2024 to 54.6 births per 1,000 women aged 15-44. The decline, ongoing since 2007, reflects a generation that doesn’t want to replace itself.
Australia’s situation is just as dire, with its birth rate crashing to an all-time low of 1.50 in 2023. Only 286,998 babies were born, the fewest since 2006, despite a population growth of 6 million since then!! Victoria’s fertility rate, at 1.39, and inner-city Melbourne’s, at a shocking 0.60, reveal a stark urban-rural divide. Economic pressures mirror Japan and the U.S.: housing unaffordability, career demands, and a lack of support for working parents are killing the dream of family.
Meanwhile, the UK faces an equally dark future. Our fertility rate here has also plummeted to a historic low. According to the Office for National Statistics the total fertility rate in England and Wales dropped to 1.44 children per woman in 2023, the lowest since records began in 1938. This marks a decline from 1.49 in 2022 and continues a downward trend that started in 2010. (Scotland’s is even lower at 1.3, with only 45,935 babies born in 2023—the fewest ever recorded there)
Across the UK, just 591,072 babies were born in 2023, the lowest number in four decades, down by 14,407 from the previous year.
There is a further nasty twist to even this data. Within those fertility figures we have to take into consideration the relatively large numbers of babies born to third world immigrants and therefore the even fewer numbers of babies born indigenous Brits.
It’s the same trend in all of these developed nations. Basically couples have decided to stop having families which means they no longer replace themselves which means a demographic death spiral!
And all of this is before we take into consideration the impact of the global rollout of the Covid jobs and their impact on fertility!
The punchline is really quite simple.
No babies equals no human species!
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