Between 1981 & 1996 South Korea saw a total of 11,280,479 Millennial births. South Korea’s Gen Alpha (born 2013 to 2028) are likely to see far less than half that number.  There will almost certainly be less than 5,000,000 Gen Alpha births in the country if existing trends hold.

The pronatalist measures being proposed by Vice President JD Vance (such as a $5,000 handout/credit for new parents) seemed destined to barely move the needle. Hungary spends 5.5% of GDP annually on pro-natal benefits & they have a TFR of 1.38 as of 2024.

South Korea, Poland, Japan, & a host of other countries have already tried tax breaks, subsidized childcare, cash handouts, generous maternity & paternity leave, & more to little avail. Doing the same thing over & over & expecting different results is well…

Used to think such pro-natalist measures (particularly tax incentives) could work. But the “results” in most countries seem to be parents having the same number of children but sooner (resulting in a brief upward blip in births followed by a crash). The answer? Cultural change that puts the family at the center of society, not cash.

https://t.co/o2Zs35un6Z

This is a topic this account has longed harped on. By the time Germany’s largest age cohorts have retired in 2030 there will not be huge waves of semi skilled Eastern European immigrants as there were from 1990-2015. At the same time German’s economy is decelerating.

There is a significant crisis ahead for Germany that is basically unavoidable. Having a sub replacement fertility rate since 1972 has consequences.

Russia seeing inevitable collapse in births due to small cohort born from 1994-2003 now being in prime child bearing years. Very likely 2025 births will fall below 1.2 million for the 1st time. Birth dearth to last until at least 2030 regardless of economic or social conditions.

In fact, if Russia was seeing Belarusian or Polish level TFR births would already be below 1 million annually.

The Ukrainian cohort born since 2017 smallest by a lot, with every year since beating the previous record low of 376,478 births set in 2001 & being lower than the year before.  Seems unlikely that births will ever go back above 375,000 (they were 176,679 last year).

A very specific area of Eastern Europe (the Baltic States, Poland, & Belarus) are all seeing TFR head to the 1.0-1.1 level of late. Belarus likely to be the worst impacted moving forward as they have the double whammy of catastrophically low TFR & high emigration.

Chart from @birthgauge

In 2024, Armenia’s negative net migration decreased to 4,212 people, compared to 29,494 in 2023. For countries like Armenia, Albania, Bosnia, Moldova etc slowing emigration is as important as increasing the fertility rate.

https://t.co/nsR1pLHak7

Most common births place for non Mexican migrants in the United States. As you can see the Indian subcontinent (India, Burma, & even tiny Bhutan!) heavily represented.

Over the next decade less than 180 million young Chinese will enter the labor force as 300 million retire. No possible way to make up that 120 million person difference. That is > than population of Vietnam. Huge global economy disrupting changes inbound.

https://t.co/oIKqpM26AO

Seoul, South Korea (home to half the country’s population) has a severe housing shortage while at the same time almost half the population there lives alone.

https://t.co/X0NR1EQi1T