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A population decline (also sometimes called underpopulation, depopulation, or population collapse) in humans is a reduction in a human population size. Over the long term, stretching from prehistory to the present, Earth's total human population has continued to grow; however, current projections suggest that this long-term trend of steady population growth may be coming to an end. Until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, global population grew very slowly. After about 1800, the growth rate accelerated to a peak of 2.09% annually during the 1967–1969 period, but since then, due to the worldwide collapse of the total fertility rate, it has declined to 1.05% as of 2020. The global growth rate in absolute numbers accelerated to a peak of 92.9 million in 1988, but has declined to 81.3 million in 2020. Long-term projections indicate that the growth rate of the human population of this planet will continue to decline and that by the end of the 21st century, it will reach
zero 0 (zero) is a number representing an empty quantity. In place-value notation such as the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, 0 also serves as a placeholder numerical digit, which works by multiplying digits to the left of 0 by the radix, usuall ...
. Examples of this emerging trend are Japan, whose population is currently (2015–2020) declining at the rate of 0.2% per year, and China, whose population could start declining in 2027 or sooner. By 2050, Europe's population is projected to be declining at the rate of 0.3% per year. Population growth has declined mainly due to the abrupt decline in the global total fertility rate, from 5.0 in 1960 to 2.3 in 2020. The decline in the total fertility rate has occurred in every region of the world and is a result of a process known as demographic transition. In order to maintain its population, ignoring migration, a country requires a minimum fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman (the number is slightly greater than 2 because not all children live to adulthood). However, almost all societies experience a drastic drop in fertility to well below 2 as they grow more wealthy (see income and fertility). The tendency of women in wealthier countries to have fewer children is attributed to a variety of reasons, such as lower
infant mortality Infant mortality is the death of young children under the age of 1. This death toll is measured by the infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the probability of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. The under-five morta ...
and a reduced need for children as a source of family labor or retirement welfare, both of which reduce the incentive to have many children. Better access to education for young women, which broadens their job prospects, is also often cited. Possible consequences of long-term national population decline can be net positive or negative. If a country can increase its workforce productivity faster than its population is declining, the results, in terms of its economy, the quality of life of its citizens, and the environment, can be net positive. If it cannot increase workforce productivity faster than its population's decline, the results can be negative. National efforts to confront a declining population to date have been focused on the possible negative economic consequences and have been centered on increasing the size and productivity of the workforce.


Causes

A reduction over time in a region's population can be caused by sudden adverse events such as outbursts of infectious disease,
famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompani ...
, and war or by long-term trends, for example
sub-replacement fertility Sub-replacement fertility is a total fertility rate (TFR) that (if sustained) leads to each new generation being less populous than the older, previous one in a given area. The United Nations Population Division defines sub-replacement fertili ...
, persistently low
birth rates The birth rate for a given period is the total number of live human births per 1,000 population divided by the length of the period in years. The number of live births is normally taken from a universal registration system for births; populati ...
, high
mortality rates Mortality rate, or death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in a particular population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit of time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of de ...
, and continued emigration.


Short-term population shocks

Historical episodes of short-term human population decline have been common and have been caused by several factors. * High death rates caused by disease, for example the
Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing ...
that devastated Europe in the 14th and 17th centuries, the arrival of Old World diseases in the Americas during European colonization, and the Spanish flu pandemic after World War I, *
Famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompani ...
, for example the Great Irish Famine of the 19th century, and the
Great Chinese Famine The Great Chinese Famine () was a period between 1959 and 1961 in the history of the People's Republic of China (PRC) characterized by widespread famine. Some scholars have also included the years 1958 or 1962. It is widely regarded as the dead ...
caused by the Great Leap Forward which caused tens of millions of deaths * War, for example, the Mongol invasion of Europe in the 13th century that may have reduced the population of Hungary by 20–40%, * Civil unrest, for example the forced migration of the population of Syria because of the Syrian Civil War Less frequently, short-term population declines are caused by genocide or mass execution. For example, it has been estimated that the
Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through th ...
caused 1.5 million deaths, the
Jewish Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
about 6 million, and, in the 1970s, the population of
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...
declined because of wide-scale executions by the Khmer Rouge. In modern times, the
AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ma ...
pandemic and the on-going COVID-19 pandemic have caused short-term drops in fertility and significant excess mortality in a number of countries. Some population declines result from indeterminate causes, for example, the
Bronze Age Collapse The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near Eas ...
, which has been described as the worst disaster in ancient history.


Long-term historic trends in world population growth

In spite of these short-term population shocks, world population has continued to grow. From around 10,000 BC to the beginning of the Early Modern Period (generally 1500 – 1800), world population grew very slowly, around 0.04% per year.  During that period, population growth was governed by conditions now labeled the “
Malthusian Trap Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, ...
”. After 1700, driven by increases in human productivity due to the Industrial Revolution, particularly the increase in
agricultural productivity Agricultural productivity is measured as the ratio of agricultural outputs to inputs. While individual products are usually measured by weight, which is known as crop yield, varying products make measuring overall agricultural output difficult ...
, population growth accelerated to around 0.6% per year, a rate that was over ten times the rate of population growth of the previous 12,000 years. This rapid increase in global population caused Malthus and others to raise the first concerns about
overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale ...
. After World War I birth rates in the United States and many European countries fell below replacement level. This prompted concern about population decline. The recovery of the birth rate in most western countries around 1940 that produced the “baby boom”, with annual growth rates in the 1.0 – 1.5% range, and which peaked in 1968 at 2.1% per year, temporarily dispelled prior concerns about population decline, and the world was once again fearful of
overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale ...
. But after 1968 the global population growth rate started a long decline, and in the period 2015–2020 it is estimated to be about 1.1%, half of its peak in 1968. Although still growing, global population is predicted to level out around the end of the 21st century, and some sources predict the start of a decline before then.  The principal cause of this phenomenon is the abrupt decline in the global total fertility rate, from 5.0 in 1960 to 2.3 in 2020. The decline in the total fertility rate has occurred in every region of the world and has brought renewed concern from some for population decline. The era of rapid global population increase, and concomitant concern about a population explosion, has been short compared with the span of human history. It began roughly at the beginning of the industrial revolution and appears to be now drawing to a close in the Western world.


Possible consequences

Predictions of the ''net'' economic (and other) effects from a slow and continuous population decline (e.g. due to low fertility rates) are mainly theoretical since such a phenomenon is a relatively new and unprecedented one. The results of many of these studies show that the estimated impact of population growth on economic growth is generally small and can be positive, negative, or nonexistent. A recent meta-study found no relationship between population growth and economic growth.


Possible positive effects

The effects of a declining population can be positive. The single best gauge of economic success is the growth of GDP per person, not total GDP. GDP per person (also known as GDP per capita or per capita GDP) is a rough proxy for average living standards. A country can both increase its average living standard and grow total GDP even though its population growth is low or even negative. The economies of both Japan and Germany went into recovery around the time their populations began to decline (2003–2006). In other words, both the total and per capita GDP in both countries grew more rapidly after 2005 than before.
Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eight ...
's economy also began to grow rapidly from 1999 onward, even though its population had been shrinking since 1992–93. Many Eastern European countries have been experiencing similar effects to Russia. Such renewed growth calls into question the conventional wisdom that economic growth requires population growth, or that economic growth is impossible during a population decline. More recently (2009–2017) Japan has experienced a higher growth of GDP per capita than the United States, even though its population declined over that period. In the United States, the relationship between population growth and growth of GDP per capita has been found to be empirically insignificant. All of this is further proof that individual prosperity can grow during periods of population decline. Attempting to better understand the economic impact of these pluses and minuses, Lee et al. analyzed data from 40 countries. They found that typically fertility well above replacement and population growth would be most beneficial for government budgets. Fertility near replacement and population stability, however, would be most beneficial for standards of living when the analysis includes the effects of age structure on families as well as governments. Fertility moderately below replacement and population decline would maximize per capita consumption when the cost of providing capital for a growing labor force is taken into account. A focus on productivity growth that leads to an increase in both per capita GDP and total GDP can bring other benefits to: *the workforce through higher wages, benefits and better working conditions *customers through lower prices *owners and shareholders through higher profits *the environment through more money for investment in more stringent environmental protection *governments through higher tax proceeds to fund government activities Another approach to possible positive effects of population decline is to consider Earth's carrying capacity. The human
carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as ...
of the Earth has been estimated to be 500 million, 1 billion or up to 12 billion. According to these studies, the human carrying capacity has already been exceeded or would be exceeded by the year 2100, therefore a global population decline would counteract the negative effects of human overpopulation.


Possible negative effects

The effects of a declining population can also be negative. As a country's population declines, GDP growth may grow even more slowly or may even decline.  If the decline in total population is not matched by an equal or greater increase in productivity (GDP/capita), and if that condition continues from one calendar quarter to the next, it follows that a country would experience a decline in GDP, known as an economic recession.  If these conditions become permanent, the country could find itself in a permanent recession. Other possible negative impacts of a declining population are: * A rise in the dependency ratio which would increase the economic pressure on the workforce * A loss of culture and the diminishment of trust amongst citizens * A crisis in end of life care for the elderly because there are insufficient caregivers for them * Difficulties in funding entitlement programs because there are fewer workers relative to retirees * A decline in military strength * A decline in innovation since change comes from the young * A strain on mental health caused by permanent recession * Deflation caused by the ageing population All these negative effects could be summarized under the heading of “Underpopulation”.  Underpopulation is usually defined as a state in which a country's population has declined too much to support its current economic system. Population decline can cause internal population pressures that then lead to secondary effects such as ethnic conflict, forced refugee flows, and
hyper-nationalism Ultranationalism or extreme nationalism is an extreme form of nationalism in which a country asserts or maintains detrimental hegemony, supremacy, or other forms of control over other nations (usually through violent coercion) to pursue its sp ...
. This is particularly true in regions where different ethnic or racial groups have different growth rates. An example of this is white nationalism. White nationalists seek to ensure the survival of the white race, and the cultures of historically white nations. Many white nationalists
believe Believe may refer to: *Belief, a psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true, with or without proof for such proposition *Faith, a belief in something which has not been proven Arts, entertainment, and me ...
that white people should therefore maintain a demographic majority and that
mass immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, an ...
of non-whites and low birth rates among whites are threatening the white race. Low fertility rates that cause long-term population decline can also lead to
population ageing Population ageing is an increasing median age in a population because of declining fertility rates and rising life expectancy. Most countries have rising life expectancy and an ageing population, trends that emerged first in developed countries ...
, an imbalance in the population age structure. Population ageing in Europe due to low fertility rates has given rise to concerns about its impact on social cohesion. A smaller national population can also have geo-strategic effects, but the correlation between population and
power Power most often refers to: * Power (physics), meaning "rate of doing work" ** Engine power, the power put out by an engine ** Electric power * Power (social and political), the ability to influence people or events ** Abusive power Power may ...
is a tenuous one. Technology and resources often play more significant roles. Since World War II, the "static" theory saw a population's absolute size as being one of the components of a country's national power. More recently, the "human capital" theory has emerged. This view holds that the quality and skill level of a labor force and the technology and resources available to it are more important than simply a nation's population size. While there were in the past advantages to high fertility rates, that "
demographic dividend Demographic dividend, as defined by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is "the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population’s age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population (15 to 64) is large ...
" has now largely disappeared.


Contemporary decline by country

The table below shows the countries that have been affected by population decline between 2010 and 2020. The term "population" used here is based on the ''de facto'' definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship, except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of the country of origin. This means that population growth in this table includes net changes from immigration and emigration. For a table of natural population changes, see list of countries by natural increase. Figure includes
Abkhazia Abkhazia, ka, აფხაზეთი, tr, , xmf, აბჟუა, abzhua, or ( or ), officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a partially recognised state in the South Caucasus, recognised by most countries as part of Georgia, which ...
and South
Ossetia Ossetia ( , ; os, Ирыстон or , or ; russian: Осетия, Osetiya; ka, ოსეთი, translit. ''Oseti'') is an ethnolinguistic region located on both sides of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, largely inhabited by the Ossetians. ...
.
Includes the
Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), is an unrecognised breakaway state that is internationally recognised as a part of Moldova. Transnistria controls most of the narrow strip of land between the Dniester riv ...
.
Aftermaths of Hurricane Maria caused an extreme surge in the traditional migration flows to the
U.S. mainland The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
.
Syrian civil war that caused high civilian deaths and a massive refugee crisis. General socio-economic collapse following the
Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Re ...
.
General socio-economic collapse caused by the ongoing political
crisis A crisis ( : crises; : critical) is either any event or period that will (or might) lead to an unstable and dangerous situation affecting an individual, group, or all of society. Crises are negative changes in the human or environmental affair ...
.


East Asia


Japan

Though Japan's
natural increase In Demography, the rate of natural increase (RNI), also known as natural population change, is defined as the birth rate minus the death rate of a particular population, over a particular time period. It is typically expressed either as a number ...
turned negative as early as 2005, the 2010 census result figure was slightly higher, at just above 128 million, than the 2005 census. Factors implicated in the puzzling figures were more Japanese returnees than expected as well as changes in the methodology of data collection. However, the official count put the population as of October 1, 2015, at 127.1 million, down by 947,000 or 0.7% from the previous quinquennial census. The gender ratio is increasingly skewed; some 106 women per 100 men live in Japan. In 2019, Japan's population fell by a record-breaking 276,000; if immigration is excluded from the figures, the drop would have been 487,000. Given the population boom of the 1950s and 1960s, the total population is still 52% above 1950 levels.


South Korea

South Korea's total fertility rate has been consistently lower than that of Japan, breaking below 1 in 2018, and fell to 0.81 in 2021. As a result, its population fell in 2020 for the first time in the country's history.


Taiwan

Taiwan recorded more deaths than births in first quarter of 2021, despite recording virtually no COVID-19 deaths, likely to continue as a long-term demographic trend.


Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics

Population in the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe is rapidly shrinking due to low birth rates, very high death rates (linked to
alcoholism Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomin ...
and high rates of infectious diseases such as
AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ma ...
and TB), as well as high emigration rates. In Russia and the former communist bloc, birth rates fell abruptly after the fall of the Soviet Union, and death rates generally rose sharply. In addition, in the 25 years after 1989, some 20 million people from Eastern Europe are estimated to have migrated to Western Europe or the United States.


Armenia

Armenia's population peaked at 3,604,000 in 1991 and declined to 3,010,600 in the January 2015 state statistical estimate. This represents a 19.7% decrease in total population since the peak census figure.


Belarus

Belarus's population peaked at 10,151,806 in 1989 Census, and declined to 9,480,868 as of 2015 as estimated by the state statistical service. This represents a 7.1% decline since the peak census figure.


Estonia

In the last Soviet census of 1989, it had a population of 1,565,662, which was close to its peak population. The state statistics reported an estimate of 1,314,370 for 2016. This represents a 19.2% decline since the peak census figure.


Georgia

In the last Soviet census of 1989, it had a population of 5,400,841, which was close to its peak population. The state statistics reported an estimate of 4,010,000 for 2014 Census, which includes estimated numbers for quasi-independent
Abkhazia Abkhazia, ka, აფხაზეთი, tr, , xmf, აბჟუა, abzhua, or ( or ), officially the Republic of Abkhazia, is a partially recognised state in the South Caucasus, recognised by most countries as part of Georgia, which ...
and
South Ossetia South Ossetia, ka, სამხრეთი ოსეთი, ( , ), officially the Republic of South Ossetia – the State of Alania, is a international recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, partially recognised Landlocked country, ...
. This represents a 25.7% decline since the peak census figure, but nevertheless somewhat higher than the 1950 population.


Latvia

When Latvia split from the Soviet Union, it had a population of 2,666,567, which was very close to its peak population. The latest census recorded a population of 2,067,887 in 2011, while the state statistics reported an estimate of 1,986,086 for 2015. This represents a 25.5% decline since the peak census figure, only one of two nations worldwide falling below 1950 levels. The decline is caused by both a negative natural population growth (more deaths than births) and a negative net migration rate.


Lithuania

When Lithuania split from the Soviet Union, it had a population of 3.7 million, which was close to its peak population. The latest census recorded a population of 3.05 million in 2011, down from 3.4 million in 2001, further falling to 2,988,000 on September 1, 2012. This represents a 23.8% decline since the peak census figure, and some 13.7% since 2001.


Ukraine

Ukraine census in 1989 resulted in 51,452,034 people. Ukraine's own estimates show a peak of 52,244,000 people in 1993; however, this number has plummeted to 45,439,822 as of December 1, 2013. Having lost Crimean territory to Russia in early 2014 and subsequently experienced war, the population dropped to 42,981,850 as of August 2014. This represents a 19.7% decrease in total population since the peak figure, but 16.8% above the 1950 population even without Crimea. Its absolute total decline (9,263,000) since its peak population is the highest of all nations; this includes loss of territory and heavy net emigration. Eastern Ukraine may yet lose many Russian-speaking citizens due to new Russian citizenship law. An editorial projects significant gender and age imbalance in the population in Ukraine as a substantial problem if most refugees, as in other cases, do not return over time. Approximately 3.8 million more people have left the country during the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...
, and several thousand have died in the conflict.


Hungary

Hungary's population peaked in 1980, at 10,709,000, and has continued its decline to under 10 million as of August 2010. This represents a decline of 7.1% since its peak; however, compared to neighbors situated to the East, Hungary peaked almost a decade earlier yet the rate has been far more modest, averaging −0.23% a year over the period.


Balkans


Albania

Albania's population in 1989 recorded 3,182,417 people, the largest for any census. Since then, its population declined to an estimated 2,893,005 in January 2015. The decline has since accelerated with a 1.3% drop in population reported in 2021 leaving a total population of 2.79 million. This represents a decrease of 12% in total population since the peak census figure.


Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina's population peaked at 4,377,033 in the 1991 Census, shortly before the Yugoslav wars that produced tens of thousands of civilian victims and refugees. The latest census of 2016 reported a population of 3,511,372. This represents a 19.8% decline since the peak census figure.


Bulgaria

Bulgaria's population declined from a peak of 9,009,018 in 1989 and since 2001, has lost yet another 600,000 people, according to 2011 census preliminary figures to no more than 7.3 million, further down to 7,245,000. This represents a 24.3% decrease in total population since the peak, and a −0.82% annual rate in the last 10 years. The Bulgarian population has fallen by more than 844,000 people, or 11.5 percent, in the last decade, the National Institute of Statistics in Sofia said during a presentation of the results so far of the 2021 census, the first since 2011. The country currently employs just over 6.5 million people, compared to 7.3 million in the previous workforce.


Croatia

Croatia's population declined from 4,784,265 in 1991 to 4,456,096 (by old statistical method) of which 4,284,889 are permanent residents (by new statistical method), in 2011, a decline of 8% (11.5% by the new definition of permanent residency in 2011 census). The main reasons for the decline since 1991 are: low birth rates, emigration and
war in Croatia The Croatian War of Independence was fought from 1991 to 1995 between Croat forces loyal to the Government of Croatia—which had declared independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY)—and the Serb-controlled Yugos ...
. From 2001 and 2011 main reason for the drop in population is due to a difference in definition of permanent residency used in censuses till 2001 (censuses of 1948, 1953, 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001) and the one used in 2011.Croatian Bureau of Statistic
Notes on methodology (Census 2011)
accessed 7 July 2013
By 2021 population dropped to 3,888,529, a 9,25% decrease from 2011 numbers.


Greece

Greece's population declined by about half a million people between its 2021 and 2011 census. The main drivers are increased emigration rates and lower birth rates following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.


Romania

Romania's 1991 census showed 23,185,084 people, and the October 2011 census recorded 20,121,641 people, while the state statistical estimate for 2014 is 19,947,311. This represents a decrease of 16.2% since the historical peak in 1991.


Serbia

Serbia recorded a peak census population of 7,576,837 in 1991 in the Yugoslav era, falling to 7,186,862 in the 2011 census. That represents a decline of 5.1% since its peak census figure.


Resumed declines

Countries whose population declines halted temporarily, but have since resumed:


Russia

The decline in Russia's total population is among the largest in numbers, but not in percentage. After having peaked at 148,689,000 in 1991, the population then decreased, falling to 142,737,196 by 2008. This represents a 4.0% decrease in total population since the peak census figure. However, since then the Russian population has risen to 146,870,000 in 2018. This recent trend can be attributed to a lower death rate, higher birth rate, the annexation of Crimea and continued immigration, mostly from Ukraine and Armenia. It is some 40% above the 1950 population. Russia has become increasingly reliant on immigration to maintain its population; 2021 had the highest net immigration since 1994, despite which there was a small overall decline from 146.1 million to 145.4 million in 2021, the largest decline in over a decade. The natural death rate in January 2020, 2021, and 2022 have each been nearly double the natural birth rate.


Spain

Spanish population fell by over 100 thousand in 2020, likely to continue as a long-term demographic trend.


Italy

Italian population fell by a record amount in 2020, likely to continue as a long-term demographic trend.


Portugal

Between 2011 and 2021, Portugal's population declined from 10.56 to 10.34 million people. The fertility rate has been consistently below 2 since the early 1980s, and the gap is increasingly being made up with Brazilian immigrants.


Syria

Syria's population has declined due to the ongoing civil war in Syria. Many Syrians have emigrated to other Middle eastern countries. The civil war makes an accurate count of the Syrian population difficult, but the UN estimates that it peaked in 2010 at 21.4 million and dropped to 17.5 million in 2020, a decline of 18%.


Halted declines


Germany

In Germany a continuously low birth rate has been offset by waves of immigration. From 2002 to 2011 the population declined by 2 million, the most since the Cold War. The 2011 national census recorded a population of 80.2 million people, following which official estimates showed an increase of 3 million over the next decade. The official estimate for 2020 was a slight decrease from 2019. Third-party estimates show a slight increase, instead.


Ireland

In the current area of the Republic of Ireland, the population has fluctuated dramatically. The population of Ireland was 8 million in 1841, but it dropped due to the
Irish famine The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a h ...
and later emigration. The population of the Republic of Ireland hit a bottom at 2.8 million in the 1961 census, but it then rose and in 2011 it was 4.58 million. As of 2020 it is estimated to be just under 5 million according to the country's Central Statistics Office.


Declines within regions or ethnic groups of a country


United States

In spite of a growing population at a national level, some formerly large American municipalities have dramatically shrunk after the Second World War, and in particular during the 1950s–1970s, due to suburbanization, urban decay,
race riots An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's positio ...
, high crime rates, deindustrialization and emigration from the Rust Belt to the
Sun Belt The Sun Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the Southeast and Southwest. Another rough definition of the region is the area south of the 36th parallel. Several climates can be found in the region — d ...
. For instance, Detroit's population peaked at almost 2 million in 1953, then declined to less than 700,000 by 2020. Other cities whose populations have dramatically shrunk since the 1950s include
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
, Buffalo, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Flint,
Gary Gary may refer to: *Gary (given name), a common masculine given name, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name *Gary, Indiana, the largest city named Gary Places ;Iran * Gary, Iran, Sistan and Baluchestan Province ;Uni ...
, New Orleans, St. Louis, Pittsburgh,
Scranton Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 U ...
, Youngstown and Wilmington (Delaware). In addition, the
depopulation of the Great Plains The depopulation of the Great Plains refers to the large-scale migration of people from rural areas of the Great Plains of the United States to more urban areas and to the east and west coasts during the 20th century. This phenomenon of rural-t ...
, caused by a very high rate of
rural flight Rural flight (or rural exodus) is the migratory pattern of peoples from rural areas into urban areas. It is urbanization seen from the rural perspective. In industrializing economies like Britain in the eighteenth century or East Asia in th ...
from isolated agricultural counties, has been going on since the 1930s. In addition, starting from the 1950s, the United States has witnessed the phenomenon of the white flight or white exodus, the large-scale migration of people of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. The term has more recently been applied to other migrations by whites, from older, inner suburbs to rural areas, as well as from the U.S.
Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...
and Midwest to the warmer climate in the
Southeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
and
Southwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...
. Migration of middle-class white populations was observed during the
Civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the United ...
in the 1950s and 1960s out of cities such as Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City and Oakland, although racial segregation of public schools had ended there long before the Supreme Court of the United States' decision ''
Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...
'' in 1954. In the 1970s, attempts to achieve effective desegregation (or "integration") by means of forced
busing Race-integration busing in the United States (also known simply as busing, Integrated busing or by its critics as forced busing) was the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools within or outside their local school districts in ...
in some areas led to more families' moving out of former areas. More recently, as of 2018, California had the largest ethnic/racial minority population in the United States; Non-Hispanic whites decreased from about 76.3 – 78% of the state's population in 1970 to 36.6%% in 2018 and 39.3% of the total population was Hispanic-Latino (of any race). A combination of long-term trends, housing affordability, and falling birthrates and rising death rates from the COVID-19 pandemic have caused as many as 16 US states to start declining in population.


France

The term 'Empty diagonal' is used for
French departments In the administrative divisions of France, the department (french: département, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. Ninety ...
that have low or declining populations. Due to continued emigration, many departments in France are seeing declines in population, including:
Aisne Aisne ( , ; ; pcd, Ainne) is a French department in the Hauts-de-France region of northern France. It is named after the river Aisne. In 2019, it had a population of 531,345.Allier Allier ( , , ; oc, Alèir) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region that borders Cher to the west, Nièvre to the north, Saône-et-Loire and Loire to the east, Puy-de-Dôme to the south, and Creuse to the south-west. Named after ...
, Ardennes,
Cantal Cantal (; oc, Cantal or ) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France, with its prefecture in Aurillac. Its other principal towns are Saint-Flour (the episcopal see) and Mauriac; its residents are known as Cantalians (frenc ...
,
Charente Charente (; Saintongese: ''Chérente''; oc, Charanta ) is a department in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, south western France. It is named after the river Charente, the most important and longest river in the department, a ...
,
Cher Cher (; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industr ...
, Corrèze,
Creuse Creuse (; oc, Cruesa or ) is a department in central France named after the river Creuse. After Lozère, it is the second least populated department in France. It is bordered by Indre and Cher to the north, Allier and Puy-de-Dôme to the eas ...
,
Dordogne Dordogne ( , or ; ; oc, Dordonha ) is a large rural department in Southwestern France, with its prefecture in Périgueux. Located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region roughly half-way between the Loire Valley and the Pyrenees, it is named ...
, Eure,
Eure-et-Loir Eure-et-Loir (, locally: ) is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers. It is located in the region of Centre-Val de Loire. In 2019, Eure-et-Loir had a population of 431,575.Haute-Marne, Haute-Saône,
Haute-Vienne Haute-Vienne (; oc, Nauta Vinhana, ; English: Upper Vienne) is a department in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in southwest-central France. Named after the Vienne River, it is one of the twelve departments that together constitute Nouvelle-Aquit ...
, Indre, Jura, Loir-et-Cher, Lot-et-Garonne, Lozère, Manche,
Marne Marne can refer to: Places France *Marne (river), a tributary of the Seine *Marne (department), a département in northeastern France named after the river * La Marne, a commune in western France *Marne, a legislative constituency (France) Nether ...
, Mayenne, Meuse, Moselle, Nièvre,
Orne Orne (; nrf, Ôrne or ) is a département in the northwest of France, named after the river Orne. It had a population of 279,942 in 2019.Paris, Sarthe, Somme, Territoire de Belfort,
Vosges The Vosges ( , ; german: Vogesen ; Franconian and gsw, Vogese) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a singl ...
and
Yonne Yonne () is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in France. It is named after the river Yonne, which flows through it, in the country's north-central part. One of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté's eight constituent departments, it is ...
. For more information, see the
List of French departments by population This table lists the 101 French departments in descending order of population, area and population density. Data description The figures include: * population without double counting for 1999; * ''municipal population'' (legal population in 200 ...
.


South Africa

The term 'white flight' has also been used for large-scale post-colonial emigration of whites from Africa, or parts of that continent, driven by levels of violent crime and anti-colonial state policies. In recent decades, there has been a steady and proportional decline in South Africa's white community, due to higher birth rates among other South African ethnic groups, as well as a high rate of emigration. In 1977, there were 4.3 million White South Africans, constituting 16.4% of the population at the time. An estimated 800,000 emigrated between 1995 and 2016, citing crime and a lack of employment opportunities.


India

The
Parsis Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...
of India have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world (0.8 children per woman in 2017); this coupled with emigration has resulted in population decline at least since the 1940s. Their population has more than halved from the peak.


National efforts to confront declining populations

A country with a declining population will struggle to fund public services such as health care, old age benefits, defense, education, water and sewage infrastructure, etc. In order to maintain some level of economic growth and continue to improve its citizens’ quality of life, national efforts to confront declining populations will tend to focus on the threat of a declining GDP.  Because a country's GDP is dependent on the size and productivity of its workforce, a country confronted with a declining population, will focus on increasing the size and productivity of that workforce.


Increase the size of the workforce

A country's workforce is that segment of its working age population that is employed.  Working age population is generally defined as those people aged 15–64. Policies that could increase the size of the workforce include: * Natalism Natalism is a set of government policies and cultural changes that promote parenthood and encourage women to bear more children. These generally fall into three broad categories: # Financial incentives. These may include child benefits and other public transfers that help families cover the cost of children. # Support for parents to combine family and work. This includes maternity-leave policies, parental-leave policies that grant (by law) leaves of absence from work to care for their children, and childcare services. # Broad social change that encourages children and parenting For example, Sweden built up an extensive welfare state from the 1930s and onward, partly as a consequence of the debate following
Crisis in the Population Question ''Crisis in the Population Question'' ( sv, Kris i befolkningsfrågan) was a 1934 book by Alva and Gunnar Myrdal, who discussed the declining birthrate in Sweden and proposed possible solutions. The book was influential in the debate that create ...
, published in 1934. Today, (2017) Sweden has extensive parental leave that allows parents to share 16 months paid leave per child, the cost divided between both employer and State. Other examples include Romania's natalist policy during the 1967–90 period and Poland's 500+ program. * Encourage more women to join the workforce.  Encouraging those women in the working age population who are not working to find jobs would increase the size of the workforce. Female participation in the workforce currently (2018) lags men's in all but three countries worldwide. Among developed countries the workforce participation gap between men and women can be especially wide. For example, currently (2018), in South Korea 59% of women work compared with 79% of men. However, even assuming that more women would want to join the workforce, increasing their participation would give these countries only a short-term increase in their workforce, because at some point a participation ceiling is reached, further increases are not possible, and the impact on GDP growth ceases. * Stop the decline of men in the workforce. In the United States the labor force participation of men has been falling since the late 1960s. The labor force participation rate is the ratio between the size of the workforce and the size of the working age population. In 1969 the labor force participation rate of men in their prime years of 25–54 was 96% and in 2015 was under 89%. * Raise the retirement age. Raising the retirement age has the effect of increasing the working age population, but raising the retirement age requires other policy and cultural changes if it is to have any impact on the size of the workforce: # Pension reform. Many retirement policies encourage early retirement. For example, in 2018 less than 10% of Europeans between ages 64–74 were employed. Instead of encouraging work after retirement, many public pension plans restrict earnings or hours of work. # Workplace cultural reform. Employer attitudes towards older workers must change. Extending working lives will require investment in training and working conditions to maintain the productivity of older workers. One study estimated that increasing retirement age by 2–3 years per decade between 2010 and 2050 would offset declining working age populations faced by "old" countries such as Germany and Japan. * Increase immigration.  A country can increase the size of its workforce by importing more migrants into their working age population. Even if the indigenous workforce is declining, qualified immigrants can reduce or even reverse this decline. However, this policy can only work if the immigrants can join the workforce and if the indigenous population accepts them. For example, starting in 2019 Japan, a country with declining workforce, will allow five-year visas for 250,000 un-skilled guest workers. Under the new measure, between 260,000 and 345,000 five-year visas will be made available for workers in 14 sectors suffering severe labor shortages, including caregiving, construction, agriculture and shipbuilding. * Reduce emigration. The table above shows that long-term persistent emigration, often caused by what is called " Brain Drain", is often one of the major causes of a county's population decline. However, research has also found that emigration can have net positive effects on sending countries, so this would argue against any attempts to reduce it.


Increase the productivity of the workforce

Development economists would call increasing the size of the workforce "extensive growth". They would call increasing the productivity of that workforce "intensive growth". In this case, GDP growth is driven by increased output per worker, and by extension, increased GDP/capita. In the context of a stable or declining population, increasing workforce productivity is better than mostly short-term efforts to increase the size of the workforce. Economic theory predicts that in the long term most growth will be attributable to intensive growth, that is, new technology and new and better ways of doing things plus the addition of
capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...
and education to spread them to the workforce. Increasing workforce productivity through intensive growth can only succeed if workers who become unemployed through the introduction of new technology can be retrained so that they can keep their skills current and not be left behind. Otherwise the result is technological unemployment. Funding for worker retraining could come from a robot tax, although the idea is controversial.


Long-term future trends

A long-term population decline is typically caused by
sub-replacement fertility Sub-replacement fertility is a total fertility rate (TFR) that (if sustained) leads to each new generation being less populous than the older, previous one in a given area. The United Nations Population Division defines sub-replacement fertili ...
, coupled with a net immigration rate that fails to compensate for the excess of deaths over births. A long-term decline is accompanied by
population aging Population ageing is an increasing median age in a population because of declining fertility rates and rising life expectancy. Most countries have rising life expectancy and an ageing population, trends that emerged first in developed countries ...
and creates an increase in the ratio of
retirees A pensioner is a person who receives a pension, most commonly because of retirement from the workforce. This is a term typically used in the United Kingdom (along with OAP, initialism of old-age pensioner), Ireland and Australia where someone of p ...
to workers and children. When a sub-replacement fertility rate remains constant, population decline accelerates over the long term. Because of the global decline in the fertility rate, projections of future global population show a marked slowing of population growth and the possibility of long-term decline. The table below summarizes the United Nations' projections of future population growth. Any such long-term projections are necessarily highly speculative. The UN divides the world into six regions. Under their projections, during the period 2045–2050 Europe's population will be in decline and all other regions will experience significant reductions in growth; furthermore, by the end of the 21st century (the period 2095–2100) three of these regions will be showing population decline and global population growth will be zero. Note: the UN's methods for generating these numbers are explained at this reference. The table shows that the UN predicts long-term decline of population growth rates in every region; however, short-term baby booms and healthcare improvements, among other factors, can cause reversals of trends. Population declines in Russia (1995–2010), Germany (1975–1985), and Ireland (1850–1960) have seen long-term reversals. The UK, having seen almost zero growth during the period 1975–1985, is now (2015–2020) growing at 0.6% per year.


See also

*
Biodiversity loss Biodiversity loss includes the worldwide extinction of different species, as well as the local reduction or loss of species in a certain habitat, resulting in a loss of biological diversity. The latter phenomenon can be temporary or permanent, de ...
*
Birth dearth Birth dearth is a neologism referring to falling fertility rates. In the late 1980s, the term was used in the context of American and European society. The use of the term has since been expanded to include many other industrialized nations. ...
*
Societal collapse Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by the loss of cultural identity and of socioeconomic complexity, the downfall of government, and the rise of violence. Possible causes ...
*
Negative Population Growth Negative Population Growth is an organization in the United States, founded in 1972. NPG works on overpopulation issues and advocates a gradual reduction in U.S. and world population. NPG believes the optimal population for the United States is ...
* History of Easter Island#Destruction of society and population *
Overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale ...
*
Human population control Human population planning is the practice of intentionally controlling the growth rate of a human population. The practice, traditionally referred to as population control, had historically been implemented mainly with the goal of increasing po ...
*
Political demography Political demography is the study of the relationship between politics and population change. Population change is driven by classic demographic mechanisms – birth, death, age structure, and migration. However, in political demography, there is ...
*
Population cycle A population cycle in zoology is a phenomenon where populations rise and fall over a predictable period of time. There are some species where population numbers have reasonably predictable patterns of change although the full reasons for population ...
* Population growth *
Rural flight Rural flight (or rural exodus) is the migratory pattern of peoples from rural areas into urban areas. It is urbanization seen from the rural perspective. In industrializing economies like Britain in the eighteenth century or East Asia in th ...
*
Sub-replacement fertility Sub-replacement fertility is a total fertility rate (TFR) that (if sustained) leads to each new generation being less populous than the older, previous one in a given area. The United Nations Population Division defines sub-replacement fertili ...
*
Zero population growth Zero population growth, sometimes abbreviated ZPG, is a condition of demographic balance where the number of people in a specified population neither grows nor declines; that is, the number of births plus in-migrants equals the number of death ...
*
Church of Euthanasia The Church of Euthanasia (also known as CoE) is a religion founded by Chris Korda and Robert Kimberk (Pastor Kim) in Boston, Massachusetts in 1992. As stated on its website, it is "a non-profit educational foundation devoted to restoring balan ...
*
Antinatalism Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the view that procreation is wrong. Antinatalists argue that humans should abstain from procreation because it is morally wrong. In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth i ...
*
Human extinction Human extinction, also known as omnicide, is the hypothetical end of the human species due to either natural causes such as population decline from sub-replacement fertility, an asteroid impact, or large-scale volcanism, or to anthropogenic ...
Case studies: *
Russian Cross The Russian Cross is the name of a demographic trend that occurred in Russia and many other countries of the former Warsaw Pact. In Russia, starting in 1988, birth rates among native Russians (as well as most other ethnic groups of the Europea ...
*
Ageing of Europe The ageing of Europe, also known as the greying of Europe, is a demographic phenomenon in Europe characterised by a decrease in fertility, a decrease in mortality rate, and a higher life expectancy among European populations. Low birth rates an ...
* Aging of the United States *
Aging of Japan Japan has the highest proportion of elderly citizens of any country in the world. According to 2014 estimates, about 38% of the Japanese population is above the age of 60, 25.9% are age 65 or above, a figure that increased to 29.1% by 2022. P ...
*
List of sovereign states and dependencies by total fertility rate A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to: People * List (surname) Organizations * List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America * SC Germania List, German rugby union ...
* Empty diagonal


References


Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Population Decline Aftermath of war Ageing Demographic economic problems