Population Growth and Human Progress

What is the current global birth rate? What factors have contributed, or are currently contributing, to this rate? What outcomes will we experience as a result, and when? How accurate are demographers' projections on this topic? How much of a problem is local over-population? Could a low global birth rate eventually be overcome by high birth rates within a few specific groups? Why does any of this matter? How is average age in the US changing? What should the American government do to address this change, if anything? Is there a correlation between religiosity and birth rates? How are birth rates connected to the culture wars in the US? Will artificial wombs someday help to stabilize the global population? What's the "right" or "best" size of the global population? Could global depopulation solve climate change?

Dean Spears is an economic demographer at the University of Texas at Austin and a founding executive director of r.i.c.e., a nonprofit working for children’s health in rural north India. He is the author of After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People. See more of Dean’s research at deanspears.net.

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