Like every other industrialized country that made the transition from an agrarian society, Japan's birthrate exploded throughout the process and peaked in the nineteen twenties.
The average number of children born to a woman in the country last year fell to 0.98, giving South Korea the lowest birthrate among the world's richest nations.
But after 1950, Japan's birthrate began to take a nosedive to the point in the nineteen sixties, Japanese women were only having two children on average.
Jennifer Glass, a demographer at the University of Texas at Austin, notes that some countries have tried to boost their birthrates by urging citizens to get busy.
Demographers say the United States may be entering an era of substantially lower population growth due to a leveling off of immigration, a declining birthrate and an aging population.
Immigrants tend to be younger — the kind of workers aging economies need — and new immigrants often have birthrates that are higher than those of the native-born population.
But, whatever the reason, it's leading to less sex and fewer births. The birthrate dropped 2% between 2017 and 2018 — and the number of births slid to a 32-year low.
Well, I mean, I'm trying to set a good example because the birthrate on Earth is so low that we're facing civilizational collapse unless the birth rate returns to a sustainable level.
Born in midcentury as U.S. birthrates surged in tandem with an enormous leap in prosperity after the Depression and World War II, boomers are now beginning to die in larger numbers, along with Americans over 80.