Stephen J. Shaw

As the collapse of birthrates accelerates across the developed world, even our language is struggling to keep up. Over nine years of demographic research, I’ve resorted to coining my own vocabulary just to describe what’s unfolding. ‘Birthgap’, for the widening gulf between generations – too few young to support too many old. ‘Yesterlands’, for once-thriving communities now quietly hollowing out. ‘Retronomics’, for the slow yet continuous un-ravelling that follows demographic decline, as nations are forced to retrofit their economies to fit their shrunken societies. Lately, I’ve been searching for another missing word – this time, to capture the invisible sense that a society still believes in its own tomorrow.

No nation in history is known to have emerged from the grip of long-term low birth rates. This sobering reality should be somewhat concerning, given that 70 per cent of the world’s people now live in countries that are below the replacement-level tipping point – countries where, on average, women have fewer than two surviving children. More worrying still, this crisis has no known solution, countless governmental incentives having failed to raise birth rates or having had only a short-lived impact. Yet, after eight years researching this phenomenon and producing the documentary Birthgap – Childless World, I am left with a hint of optimism for the next generation.