Lower fertility rates (as an outcome of family choice, not laws) than previous does not sound like a disaster to me and may turn out to be an important part of ensuring the survival (and comfort) of the species.
This burden is made even worse as most developed countries have established pension systems that act as generational wealth transfers, where younger workers pay for the pensions of the elderly, in the hopes that the next generation of children will in turn pay for their parents' pensions.
It gets worse: that large mass of retired people now represent the main block of voters, making it very difficult to enact pension reforms that will reduce the amount of money they siphon from younger generations.
It is very easy to go from a sustainable stable population to a rapid population decline that is difficult to recover from.
Somehow our expectations for birth rates are based on a period of a boom. Proper stats are not used for this purpose because they would clash with the prosperity narrative.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_the_Roman_Empi...
Sample ignored statistics. The baby boom was fueled by enormous fall in childhood mortality. Otherwise the growth rates are apparently near zero... Our negative percentages are likely a correction over the sudden boom, which is why we see a similar reaction worldwide. Regardless of the housing prices, income or other reasons. Even in the Global South.
Some countries, like in the Baltics, are seeing population decline, but human population is still growing fairly quickly.
However from an economics standpoint increasing numbers declining birthrates across the globe is disastrous.
Capitalism works by continually passing the buck to the next generation. In order to maintain our current economy we need an ever larger amount of cheap labor creating affordable products. The only two solutions to this are to have a high birth rate or to take advantage of another country's high birthrate through immigration.
Europe is seeing this as massive waves of immigration that many groups are uncomfortable with, but these immigrants are necessary to provide affordable labor in the face rapidly declining birthrates. But this economic salvation comes at a the cost of local culture. American's pride themselves on being a "melting pot" but not all European nations feel the same.
The US has long relied on immigration for this, but if you look immigration has been flattening out [0] and the impact can be felt in the US. Labor based services are getting harder and harder to get and companies that require labor intensive industries like lumber are experiencing shutdowns because they cannot find enough affordable labor [1].
Again, from a purely ecological/sustainability standpoint this is good: reduced production means reduced consumption, much better for the planet. But this also translates to reduced quality of life. As this trend continues people will continue to find it harder and harder to get goods and services that require human labor.
0. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested...
1. https://www.mtpr.org/2024-04-18/lumber-mill-closure-leaves-s...
Population reduction through policy is entirely different
I have no children and, barring some unusual happenstance, will not. But I knew that going into my marriage (heterosexual, we certainly could have had them).