With unerring regularity, birth rates are dropping in almost every country on Earth. What was once assumed to be a rich world problem is now a reality in places as diverse as Chile, Russia, Thailand and the Caribbean. Almost everywhere people are having fewer and fewer children. Many nations, including the UK and the US, are now well below the magic number of 2.1 children per woman, the ‘replacement rate’ needed to maintain a stable population. In this episode we talk through the various theories proposed to explain why this is happening (is it about expensive childcare, birth control or cultural shifts in gender roles?) and also what the implications will be for our societies. And we end by discussing whether Christians should be joining those sounding the alarm about declining birth rates, and what our faith might have to say about the enduring value of having children.

Several years ago we recorded a couple of episodes exploring the parallel phenomenon of rising numbers of older people https://www.johnwyatt.com/old-people-1/

Some helpful data on global birth rates in decline https://ourworldindata.org/global-decline-fertility-rate

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Released on 2 Apr 2025