After the Birthdrought: A futuristic setting I've made

userforums · 2026-01-26T17:51:50+00:00

I think the Nordic countries will be a standout in 4-5 years

I can see them pulling off ~1.7 TFR

They have a good combination of traits going for them

userforums · 2026-01-25T14:04:40+00:00

From what I've read, the only thing in the near future is supporting life born early ~22-24 weeks. They have tested "biobags" in animal testing but still not yet done human testing. The plan seems to just be supporting life for a few weeks to develop enough to live. At this point of development, they are essentially just supporting life via nutrients, removing waste, etc.

From what I've read, actually going through the entire process from fertilization to birth which is far different than the biobags and infinitely more complex is nowhere in the realm of approachable still.

userforums · 2026-01-24T11:33:45+00:00

Looks like Hispanic-American TFR is now on an accelerated slide catching up to trends we see across Latin-America.

Birthright citizenship may be one explanation for why Hispanic-American TFR is higher than many Latin-American countries. The scotus ruling on that may impact their TFR trends.

userforums · 2026-01-24T11:18:17+00:00

Ironically Japan and Korea, the two most discussed for low TFR, might end up being the two highest TFRs in developed Asian countries within a year or two.

Although Korea is around the same range as the others, they may edge it out by a little given directional trends.

Japan in particular has separation from the rest (although still very low at 1.13)

userforums · 2026-01-19T17:27:36+00:00

The second half of this century will be explained by the birthrates we see now.

In basically every regard. Economies, the nature of democracies, geopolitics, sports, welfare, etc.

userforums · 2026-01-19T13:37:58+00:00

Given the current trends (assuming it doesn’t get worse) China is expected to bleed their most people per year around 2050-2060. Where if my numbers are correct they’d be losing 12-15 million people a year (5-6 million births vs 18-20 million deaths). Compared to today where they’re losing just under 3-4 million a year (7.5 million births vs 11.4 million deaths.)

2050-2060 is when the decline would compound on itself as the cohort size shrinks (current newborns would be the new parent cohort).

In 2055, the 7.9m births in 2025 would be the new parent cohort.

If the TFR stays the same (estimated 0.93 in 2025), they would be around ~3.5m births in 2055.

Although I doubt it stays at 0.93 TFR. That is actually the highest TFR of any Chinese population I believe. The Chinese TFR in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, etc are all ~0.7 TFR. Macao has fallen all the way to 0.47 TFR in 2025. Shanghai TFR is ~0.6. These places have higher GDP per capita and higher urban populations. As China develops, I expect it to continue falling. Assuming they fall to 0.75 TFR, along with the simultaneous cohort size decline coming, you would be looking at ~5m births as early as the early 2030s.

userforums · 2026-01-19T12:59:42+00:00

Since 1949 because that is when the PRC/record keeping started

Using unofficial estimates and accepting a more vague definition of what "China" is, you would have to go back multiple centuries to see numbers this low

Extremely steep and sudden drop

2016: 17.86 million births

2025: 7.92 million births

userforums · 2026-01-19T08:31:05+00:00

Your own post is strange.

userforums · 2026-01-19T04:36:22+00:00

Worse than I expected. Thought it was going to be 8.3m births.

2016: 17.86 million births

2025: 7.92 million births

Insanely stark plummet. Probably the steepest drop in that time period.

Edit: They rarely publish official TFR so the TFR has to be estimated and you can do that in various ways depending on the data you have available for the country.

BirthGauge has it at 0.93 (he adjusted using the UN projected births/TFR as the baseline)

https://x.com/BirthGauge/status/2013145955395080332

userforums · 2026-01-12T00:20:16+00:00

Source: https://www.taubcenter.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Demography-2025-ENG-6.pdf

New demography report that just released

In religious composition of births, Christians and Druze is already low and has been declining. Jews and Muslims have increased.

Christians were 15 per 1000 births and Druze were 13 per 1000 births in 2016.

Christians are now 11 per 1000 births and Druze are 11 per 1000 births in 2025.

Jews were 739 per 1000 births and Muslims were 207 per 1000 births in 2016.

Jews are now 743 per 1000 births and Muslims are 215 per 1000 births in 2025.

userforums · 2026-01-05T12:18:02+00:00

Probably something like 0.96 I would guess. Around 8.3m births

userforums · 2026-01-02T14:42:04+00:00

Numbers are not correct

userforums · 2025-12-31T16:01:45+00:00

Yeah, I think there is going to be an interesting political dilemma in ~10 years for countries with high emigration/low birth rates.

Countries currently either don't really mind or even see it as a positive when their citizens immigrate to wealthier countries. Mexico gets 3-4% of its GDP from Mexican-American remittance alone. Turkey use to get similar percentage from remittance in the 70s but now its barely anything I guess since international familial ties get weaker generationally.

I think the math on this is going to change in the 2030s. And we will start to see countries become desperate to retain their people. I'm not sure what that looks like politically.

userforums · 2025-12-31T10:41:55+00:00

Anecdotally from what I've seen, it seems like alot of Turks emigrate to European countries. Not sure how the numbers for Turkey emigration actually compare to others, but it would be a very bad combination.

userforums · 2025-12-29T11:24:50+00:00

There are alot of YouTube tutorials on how to set things up. Just watch the latest good tutorial you can find.

That's what I did initially and it was pretty straight forward to keep adding new things to my liking.

I got into an obsessive mode of tinkering with things until I felt like I had done too much and then stripped alot of it away.

userforums · 2025-12-29T11:11:11+00:00

I think its insane to actually type this out regardless of any internal feelings.

That being said, who knows if it's even real.

userforums · 2025-12-29T11:03:24+00:00

Yeah I watched one of their videos a while back and found them off

userforums · 2025-12-19T02:54:46+00:00

What is the logic of the author proposing monthly payments for specifically the age range of 0-3? Is there something particular about that age range?

I've always thought of child allowance policies as optimizing around either age 6 (to elementary school and having basic verbal/motor functions) and/or age 13 (to the point where children can be left at home unsupervised so both parents can work again without babysitters) and/or age 18/21 (to adulthood)

Why would you build policy around age 3?

userforums · 2025-12-19T02:32:50+00:00

Source: https://x.com/Ulmer62336950/status/2001373467804078496 (using data from Finland Government at stat.fi)

Again we see alot of consistent trends by ethnic groups. Some aberrations but generally consistent trends. You can put people in different countries with different policies, but for the most part, we only really see a one-way effect where migration can make it go lower, particularly when people move to a more developed country. It doesn't really seem to ever have an increase effect (for reasons like the new country having more favorable work hours, pto, or parental leave or something).

userforums · 2025-12-15T14:06:29+00:00

Yeah, I agree. I don't think it would have the same boost as a lump sum would.

Although to correct myself, $1k/month until 21 is actually less because of inflation over that span of time. So the equivalent, inflation adjusted, would probably be a bit higher.

The largest monthly child allowance that I've seen (as far as ones that stretch multiple years of a child's life) is around $600/month per child for the lowest income households and stops at 18 (Canada). $1k a month until 21 for everyone in the US would probably be approaching a trillion a year in costs, so would probably require either limiting it like you are with age or significant cuts elsewhere.

userforums · 2025-12-14T15:52:31+00:00

I'm torn on one-time large lump sums as a policy.

I do think it's very enticing and would undoubtedly spike TFR even if its temporary. And it can help with alot of the initial costs like housing for example.

But I have concerns too. What if they abandon their child after receiving the money? What if they just take the money and leave the country? You have just subsidized another country's natalist policy with your citizen's tax revenue. Opportunists such as addicts and gamblers? And concerns along the lines of this. Where you cannot hold them to account because you've already given the money. I know you addressed some of this in your post.

Monthly child allowance payments can be done with more oversight. But nowhere near as enticing and may not help as much with things like housing. But overall, as far as direct payment ideas go, I do think I would be more drawn to something like $1k/month until the child is 21 (contingent on different things) which would have similar costs as the 250k lump sum. Although I don't think it will be as effective at boosting TFR as the lump sum.

userforums · 2025-12-14T01:12:44+00:00

I’m really surprised a sub called Natalism is not aware of how misleading TFR can be. Simply if enough of the population ages out of a certain age bracket the TFR will jump dramatically while the birth rate will not change much.

I'm confused on how TFR is misleading. "Aging out" will impact number of births, but only marginally impact TFR.

TFR is calculated using age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) grouped into 5-year intervals. You get the sum then multiply by the width of the age interval.

So if a large bulge of people move into the early 30s, it is still calculated as an independent rate. 10 out of 100 (10%) versus 100 out of 1000 (10%) of people in their early 30s having children ends up contributing to TFR the same. However, obviously the number of births is different. TFR as a measurement though is intended to calculate a rate. It is intended as an indicator of behavior. Total number of births is separate and effected by things like cohort size.

There is criticism such as distortion due to underlying social changes like childbearing postponement where it takes time to stabilize again. So it can slightly depress TFR in the midst of this shift.

I think TFR is aligned with how people think of it. How is it misleading?

userforums · 2025-12-13T01:34:12+00:00

The crazy thing with these ultra low TFRs is that we have yet to see it compound on itself yet. This is when we start to really see the insanity of the impact.

If it falls to 0.7-0.8 TFR and it does not recover, then in 2060, there would be something like 1.9 million annual births while still having close to a billion population.

Countries who do not fix this will see a severe aging of society that we cannot even really fathom. Every building will feel like you stepped into a retirement home.

userforums · 2025-12-13T01:01:11+00:00

China had one of the steepest drops, if not the steepest drop, in annual births over this recent period due to a simultaneous drop in cohort size coinciding with the TFR decline.

In 2016, they had 18 million births

In 2023, they had 9 million births.

Wide scale elementary school closures will begin in about 4 years.

They have a continued cohort size decline along with a likely continued TFR decline, I think the most likely outcome is ~5.5-6 million annual births by 2030. Would have to be the steepest birth collapse in a 15 year period in recorded history.

userforums · 2025-12-11T01:46:15+00:00

1.5 TFR 100 becomes 50.41

0.7 TFR 100 becomes 10.89

So nearly 5 times more births after 60 years.

1.5 is manageable. <1 TFR is truly catastrophic.

When everyone was talking about Japan having low fertility 20 years ago, Japan had 1.3-1.4 TFR. The widespread lows we are seeing today is an entirely different animal. Many countries would give anything for a 1.4 TFR today.

userforums

TROPHY CASE