Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Visions of Society

Is An Ageing Population Our Natural Fate?

Nguyen Ba Thanh wonders if death by old age is civilisation’s destiny.

A new phenomenon, population ageing, is spreading across the Earth. As they modernize, birth rates in more than eighty countries – almost the entire top half of the development tables – have fallen below the replacement minimum of 2.1 births per female per lifetime. Highly correlated with women’s education, sub-replacement fertility rates cut across national cultures, religious heritages, or skin tones, linking Orthodox Russia, Buddhist Thailand, Muslim Iran, Confucian Korea, Catholic Brazil, godless Germany, socialist Sweden, capitalist America… As fewer youths replace their ageing parents, a sustained sub-2.1 birthrate will make a population smaller over time while its median age rises.

…