“Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can’t find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks.”
This was an excerpt from the Long Slide Looms for World Population with Sweeping Ramifications which was published in The New York Times on 23 May 2021. It takes a fertility rate of 2.1 to replace the existing population. Here is a brief list of fertility rates in selected countries: US, 1.7; China, 1.7; UK, 1.6; Germany, 1.5, Japan, 1.4; Italy, 1.3; Spain 1.2; South Korea, 0.9. The countries in this narrow list constitute half the global economy and 80% of the world equity market. The consequences are not immediate. Even as fertility rates fall below 2.1, total populations can...
To continue reading this article...
Join Investment Week for free
Signup and gain exclusive members-only insights - all free of charge!
- Unlimited access to real-time news, analysis and opinion from the investment industry, including the Sustainable Hub covering fund news from the ESG space
- Get ahead of regulatory and technological changes affecting fund management
- Important and breaking news stories selected by the editors delivered straight to your inbox each day
- Weekly members-only newsletter with exclusive opinion pieces from leading industry experts
- Be the first to hear about our extensive events schedule and awards programmes
