The fertility rate in England and Wales decreased for the third year in a row. It is a story that is repeated all over the world, where two -thirds of the world’s population now lives in countries with fertility less than the level of replacement. Low fertility rates have become a point of discussion around the political right, as Elon Musk claims that the decrease in the population is an existential threat to the future of humanity. But for others, the relevant time tables are so wide that they do not start anxiety now. How should we think about the decline in the population? In the first episode of a series of two parts, Madeleine Vinolai talks to Dean Spears, a professor of assistant economics at the University of Texas in Austin, and how Dr. Jennifer Scuba, President and Executive Director of the Conservative Reference Office, to find out what happened to global birth rates, and how governments try to address the fall
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