By Eduardo Porter
Publication Date: 2026-04-19 11:00:00
Remember environmentalist Paul Ehrlich’s prediction in the 1960s that overpopulation would deplete the Earth’s resources and condemn millions to starvation? His Malthusian condemnation of humanity’s insatiable appetite has kept the debate about the future of the planet in its grip and even discouraged young people from having children.
Ehrlich was wrong. But while we’ve concluded that overpopulation won’t kill us all, we’re beset by another demographic emergency: We’re not having too many children, we’re having too few. This problem is real.
The latest scare came from government figures released last week that suggested the decline in U.S. fertility – the number of children a woman will have over her lifetime – could accelerate, reaching a record low of 1.57 in 2025, below the 1.62 the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) forecast in January last year.
This is well below the 2.1 children per woman required to maintain a stable population, a rate we do not have…
