Will the looming fertility bust destroy religion?

The New York Times recently published a major article addressing one of the most significant developments in the modern world. The story, by Damien Cave, Emma Bubola, and Choe Sang-hun, was headlined “Long Slide Looms for World Population, with Sweeping Ramifications” (May 22). It took a well-known phenomenon of the past half century—the dramatic collapse of birth rates in Europe and other highly developed nations—and showed how that trend has now spread to large parts of the globe, with notable impacts already in Latin America and South and East Asia. Brazil, for instance, now has a fertility rate comparable to Denmark.

As the Times authors note, this is “a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history,” and it portends a sharply aging population, in which children become scarce. The prospects for 2050 are hair-raising for all aspects of life—for commerce, government, politics, and social services. “It may also require a reconceptualization of family and nation,” they write. “Imagine entire regions where everyone is 70 or older.” And then ask a still more frightening question: Will this decline ever reverse? What is the final outcome?

I have a vested interest in the study of this phenomenon, as last year I published a book that tried to assess the implications of fertility decline for religious life and practice and to extrapolate it to midcentury. The book is Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Trans­formation of World Religions, and I stand by that subtitle.