While at the time of this writing, the population of the world continues to expand, demographers believe this is not a situation that will last for much longer. Indeed, the UN believes that by the 22nd century, the global population will first stabilize, and then begin shrinking.

This will be the first time in history in which the global population hasn’t been rising, and it will have a profound impact on society and on politics. Indeed, we may even need to rethink our predisposition towards continuous economic growth.

Shifting sands

A recent paper from Stanford explores a scenario in which the population of the planet declines all the way to the point where we’re left with no inhabitants on the planet. It’s a world in which living standards stagnate as the population dwindles.

What is perhaps most interesting about the paper is that the author doesn’t believe there to be much of a middle ground between one of population expansion and one of a shrinking population. They argue that once negative population growth begins it’s very hard to reverse.

While we often view population in a negative sense, with the large global population characterized by a fundamental lack of resources to go around, the author suggests that a large population is actually crucial for the generation of the new ideas that generate economic growth.

“People are the key input into producing ideas,” they explain. “Suppose each person can make one idea a year. If the population’s constant, you always get more ideas and things always get better and better; we get richer and richer. If population growth is negative, the inputs to creating new ideas are shrinking, and that naturally leads the stock of knowledge to stagnate.”

The population paradox

We’re living in a somewhat ironic situation whereby the growing population thus far has generated the ideas, and therefore the economic growth, that has prompted a decline in the current birth rate.

“As people get richer as economies get more prosperous, it seems like people have fewer and fewer kids,” the author explains. “From an individual family standpoint, that may be totally rational and may be the right thing to do, but the macro implications of that are really profound.”

Around two-thirds of the global population currently lives in a country that has a fertility rate below the recognized replacement rate of 2 children per woman. The author believes that any attempts to raise this birth rate have to be initiated in time to halt a decline that is impossible to recover from.