Demographics Now and Then

According to the South Korean Ministry of Data and Statistics & the Ministry of Education, there was a 6.5% increase in teenage student suicides in South Korea in 2025 &,the highest annual number on record. Over the past decade, youth suicide deaths have risen by 45.1%,from 273 in 2016 to 396 in 2025. This is occurring as the number of students are falling to the lowest levels in South Korean history. Source: https://www.asiae.co.kr/en/article/education/2026060914173180078

EU births likely fell below 3,500,000 last year. They’re likely to fall further this year across the bloc.  US births look set to be higher than EU for third year in a row in 2026.  Fertility rate of EU has now been below replacement for 50 years.  Current EU wide TFR is~1.35.

Taiwan only saw 107,812 births last year.  That is significantly less than the 119,107 births the island saw in 1906 when they only had 3,000,000 inhabitants (vs 23M today).  A TFR of 0.695 is running the country down real fast.  Natural decline was nearly 100,000 last year. The 23,300,000 population will begin declining apace (even when accounting for immigration) by the 2030s unless TFR increases substantially (they would likely need more than a South Korean 2025-2026 sized recovery).

Incredibly high population density makes high TFR less sustainable. Bangladesh is the size of Iowa (population 3.2M) with a population above 170M & Uttar Pradesh is the size of Oregon (population 4.3M) and has more than 240M people.

Interesting, according to Statistics Canada 42% of Canadian newborns have a foreign-born mother. In addition, nearly 53% of Canadian-born women aged 20 to 49 are childless, compared to 44.6% of foreign-born/“landed immigrant” (SC wording) women. One of the main things the “childless” category tells us is that Canadian born women are having children later. Many of the 47% in the early years of the 20-49 group will obviously have children in the years to come. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260126/dq260126a-eng.htm

Ipsos published its Generational Report on looming "Consumer Extinction”. In 5 of G7 economic powers, deaths officially outnumber births leading to world w/permanently fewer buyers.  As corporate profits now endangered policymakers may pay more attention: https://www.ipsos.com/en/ipsos-generations-report-2026-continuity-vs-rupture

China’s future economic contraction will obviously slow the global economy enormously. Crashing of fertility rates to sub 1.0 in China,South Korea,Taiwan,& Singapore already impacting East Asian growth but will become far more pronounced in 2030s which is just around the corner.

It is interesting that the places in India with the highest fertility rates are the states with the largest populations that are also amongst the most densely populated. Indo-Gangetic Plain states of UP & Bihar have a combined population far larger than that of the entire U.S.

Source: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20240913/p2a/00m/0na/025000c

The reason Japan has a much higher fertility rate than South Korea or Singapore or Taiwan or China is because of women like this (the one in the post below just celebrated the birth of her 7th child). 22% of married Japanese couples have three or more children (3-5X more than in China, Taiwan, South Korea, or Singapore). 3.2% have four or more. https://x.com/hashimotokotoe/status/2062080244975284456

Thailand has a TFR that is lower than South Korea this year (estimated at sub 0.80 as of May 2026) despite having a GDP Per Capita (PPP) 60% lower. Thailand almost certain to get old before it gets rich.

In 2023, Canada had the highest proportion of births to foreign-born mothers (39.3%), followed by Australia (36.5%). The U.S. is in the middle (30.7%), while the lowest proportion among the selected countries was in the Netherlands (21.3%), closely followed by Denmark (21.9%).

But while Latam immigration slows in the 2030s (it will still be large as these societies will keep sending until they hollow out) lawmakers & business elites will search for ways to replace this flow. In some ways it is already happening. If “mainstream” politicians opt for a Canada style immigration arrangement the U.S. could see an influx of 1,000,000 a year from the subcontinent alone by 2035.

There is basically no way El Salvador can continue sending tens of thousands of migrants annually, also in less than a decade Guatemala may be in the same situation. In addition, Mexico will also be able to pay Central American immigrants higher salaries which will dissuade the massive numbers we saw in the early 2000s and early 2020s.

The Central American fertility collapse has been incredibly fast and its implications will be huge. Guatemala fell from almost 3.0 TFR a decade ago to ⬇️ 1.8 today, in that same timeframe Panama went from 2.5 to 1.8, Nicaragua from~2.5 to 1.9, El Salvador 2.2 to 1.4, Honduras to sub replacement, & Costa Rica to ⬇️1.2. It looks like this decline may deepen further and this is at a time when every Latam country is now below replacement (including Paraguay and Bolivia).

In the 1980s, ~65% of conservative women & 60% of liberal women aged 25-35 were parents. By the mid-2020s, the number of liberal women with kids in the same age bracket had plummeted to just 40% while young conservative women with children rose slightly to 71%, a 31% motherhood gap based strictly on political identity.

Migration mainly can kicking as we see when even mass migration counties (U.S., UK, & Canada) seem set to slip into natural decline. France, Netherlands, & many others already have. As natural decline increases so does call for ever more migration to balance the fiscal books. Not sustainable.

Germany only has 3,619,000 people under age 5 living in the country (approximately 1.5M of whom have a migrant background versus 2.075M without). This compares to roughly 4,750,000 ages 65-69 (approximately 750,000 with a migrant background & 4,000,000 without). https://x.com/shifty_coffee/status/2043704317895405690

South Korean TFR will almost certainly be above 1.0 this year. The comeback cohort born from 1991-1995 is having more kids & is increasing the fertility rate to a near decade high (last above 1.0 in 2017). Welcome news indeed especially as TFR was just 0.721 in 2023. South Korean TFR trajectory now exceeding UNs ‘optimistic’ projection & getting to 1.18 by 2030 is seen as less and less unlikely. Still the Korean Zoomer cohort is so destroyed compared to late millennial that births will go down 2030 onwards even if the TFR increase continues. https://x.com/andyd10/status/2059531979167568028

He is correct. No European country has come close to bringing TFR back to replacement after falling below 1.5 TFR. Czechia got TFR back to 1.81 briefly, Romania too, but it was fleeting. Both are now below 1.5 again.