A population decline (also sometimes called underpopulation, depopulation, or population collapse) in

human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

s is a reduction in a human

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction usi ...

size. Over the long term, stretching from

prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...

to the present, Earth's total human population has continued to grow; however, current projections suggest that this long-term trend of steady population growth may be coming to an end. Until the beginning of the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, global population grew very slowly. After about 1800, the growth rate accelerated to a peak of 2.09% annually during the 1967–1969 period, but since then, due to the worldwide collapse of the total fertility rate, it has declined to 1.05% as of 2020. The global growth rate in absolute numbers accelerated to a peak of 92.9 million in 1988, but has declined to 81.3 million in 2020. Long-term projections indicate that the growth rate of the human population of this planet will continue to decline and that by the end of the 21st century, it will reach zero. Examples of this emerging trend are

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

, whose population is currently (2015–2020) declining at the rate of 0.2% per year, and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

, whose population could start declining in 2027 or sooner. By 2050, Europe's population is projected to be declining at the rate of 0.3% per year. Population growth has declined mainly due to the abrupt decline in the global total fertility rate, from 5.0 in 1960 to 2.3 in 2020. The decline in the total fertility rate has occurred in every region of the world and is a result of a process known as

demographic transition In demography, demographic transition is a phenomenon and theory which refers to the historical shift from high birth rates and high death rates in societies with minimal technology, education (especially of women) and economic development, to l ...

. In order to maintain its population, ignoring migration, a country requires a minimum fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman (the number is slightly greater than 2 because not all children live to adulthood). However, almost all societies experience a drastic drop in fertility to well below 2 as they grow more wealthy (see

income and fertility Income and fertility is the association between monetary gain on one hand, and the tendency to produce offspring on the other. There is generally an inverse correlation between income and the total fertility rate within and between nations. Th ...

). The tendency of women in wealthier countries to have fewer children is attributed to a variety of reasons, such as lower infant mortality and a reduced need for children as a source of family labor or retirement welfare, both of which reduce the incentive to have many children. Better access to education for young women, which broadens their job prospects, is also often cited. Possible consequences of long-term national population decline can be net positive or negative. If a country can increase its workforce productivity faster than its population is declining, the results, in terms of its economy, the quality of life of its citizens, and the environment, can be net positive. If it cannot increase workforce productivity faster than its population's decline, the results can be negative. National efforts to confront a declining population to date have been focused on the possible negative economic consequences and have been centered on increasing the size and productivity of the workforce.

Causes

A reduction over time in a region's population can be caused by sudden adverse events such as outbursts of infectious

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...

, and war or by long-term trends, for example sub-replacement fertility, persistently low birth rates, high mortality rates, and continued

emigration Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanent ...

Short-term population shocks

Historical episodes of short-term human population decline have been common and have been caused by several factors. * High death rates caused by

, for example the Black Death that devastated Europe in the 14th and 17th centuries, the arrival of Old World diseases in the Americas during European colonization, and the

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case wa ...

pandemic after World War I, *

Famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an economic catastrophe or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompan ...

, for example the Great Irish Famine of the 19th century, and the Great Chinese Famine caused by the Great Leap Forward which caused tens of millions of deaths * War, for example, the Mongol invasion of Europe in the 13th century that may have reduced the population of Hungary by 20–40%, * Civil unrest, for example the forced migration of the population of Syria because of the Syrian Civil War Less frequently, short-term population declines are caused by

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...

or mass execution. For example, it has been estimated that the

Armenian genocide The Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through t ...

caused 1.5 million deaths, the

Jewish Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...

about 6 million, and, in the 1970s, the population of

Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...

declined because of wide-scale executions by the Khmer Rouge. In modern times, the AIDS pandemic and the on-going

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

have caused short-term drops in fertility and significant

excess mortality Excess may refer to: * Angle excess, in spherical trigonometry * Insurance excess, similar to a deductible * Excess, in chemistry, a reagent that is not the limiting reagent * "Excess", a song by Tricky from the album '' Blowback'' * ''Excess'' ( ...

in a number of countries. Some population declines result from indeterminate causes, for example, the Bronze Age Collapse, which has been described as the worst disaster in ancient history.

Long-term historic trends in world population growth

In spite of these short-term population shocks, world population has continued to grow. From around 10,000 BC to the beginning of the Early Modern Period (generally 1500 – 1800),

world population In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion in November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for th ...

grew very slowly, around 0.04% per year. During that period, population growth was governed by conditions now labeled the “

Malthusian Trap Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, ...

”. After 1700, driven by increases in human productivity due to the

, particularly the increase in agricultural productivity, population growth accelerated to around 0.6% per year, a rate that was over ten times the rate of population growth of the previous 12,000 years. This rapid increase in global population caused Malthus and others to raise the first concerns about

overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale ...

. After World War I birth rates in the United States and many European countries fell below replacement level. This prompted concern about population decline. The recovery of the birth rate in most western countries around 1940 that produced the “baby boom”, with annual growth rates in the 1.0 – 1.5% range, and which peaked in 1968 at 2.1% per year, temporarily dispelled prior concerns about population decline, and the world was once again fearful of

. But after 1968 the global population growth rate started a long decline, and in the period 2015–2020 it is estimated to be about 1.1%, half of its peak in 1968. Although still growing, global population is predicted to level out around the end of the 21st century, and some sources predict the start of a decline before then. The principal cause of this phenomenon is the abrupt decline in the global total fertility rate, from 5.0 in 1960 to 2.3 in 2020. The decline in the total fertility rate has occurred in every region of the world and has brought renewed concern from some for population decline. The era of rapid global population increase, and concomitant concern about a population explosion, has been short compared with the span of human history. It began roughly at the beginning of the industrial revolution and appears to be now drawing to a close in the

Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.

Possible consequences

Predictions of the ''net'' economic (and other) effects from a slow and continuous population decline (e.g. due to low fertility rates) are mainly theoretical since such a phenomenon is a relatively new and unprecedented one. The results of many of these studies show that the estimated impact of population growth on economic growth is generally small and can be positive, negative, or nonexistent. A recent meta-study found no relationship between population growth and economic growth.

Possible positive effects

The effects of a declining population can be positive. The single best gauge of economic success is the growth of GDP per person, not total GDP. GDP per person (also known as GDP per capita or per capita GDP) is a rough proxy for average living standards. A country can both increase its average living standard and grow total GDP even though its population growth is low or even negative. The economies of both

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

went into recovery around the time their populations began to decline (2003–2006). In other words, both the total and per capita GDP in both countries grew more rapidly after 2005 than before.

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

's economy also began to grow rapidly from 1999 onward, even though its population had been shrinking since 1992–93. Many Eastern European countries have been experiencing similar effects to Russia. Such renewed growth calls into question the conventional wisdom that economic growth requires population growth, or that economic growth is impossible during a population decline. More recently (2009–2017) Japan has experienced a higher growth of GDP per capita than the United States, even though its population declined over that period. In the United States, the relationship between population growth and growth of GDP per capita has been found to be empirically insignificant. All of this is further proof that individual prosperity can grow during periods of population decline. Attempting to better understand the economic impact of these pluses and minuses, Lee et al. analyzed data from 40 countries. They found that typically fertility well above replacement and population growth would be most beneficial for government budgets. Fertility near replacement and population stability, however, would be most beneficial for standards of living when the analysis includes the effects of age structure on families as well as governments. Fertility moderately below replacement and population decline would maximize per capita consumption when the cost of providing capital for a growing labor force is taken into account. A focus on productivity growth that leads to an increase in both per capita GDP and total GDP can bring other

benefits Benefit or benefits may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''Benefit'' (album), by Jethro Tull, 1970 * "Benefits" (''How I Met Your Mother''), a 2009 TV episode * ''The Benefit'', a 2012 Egyptian action film Businesses and organisation ...

to: *the workforce through higher wages, benefits and better working conditions *customers through lower prices *owners and shareholders through higher profits *the environment through more money for investment in more stringent environmental protection *governments through higher tax proceeds to fund government activities Another approach to possible positive effects of population decline is to consider Earth's carrying capacity. The human carrying capacity of the Earth has been estimated to be 500 million, 1 billion or up to 12 billion. According to these studies, the human carrying capacity has already been exceeded or would be exceeded by the year 2100, therefore a global population decline would counteract the negative effects of

human overpopulation Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...

Possible negative effects

The effects of a declining population can also be negative. As a country's population declines, GDP growth may grow even more slowly or may even decline. If the decline in total population is not matched by an equal or greater increase in productivity (GDP/capita), and if that condition continues from one calendar quarter to the next, it follows that a country would experience a decline in GDP, known as an economic recession. If these conditions become permanent, the country could find itself in a permanent recession. Other possible negative impacts of a declining population are: * A rise in the dependency ratio which would increase the economic pressure on the workforce * A loss of culture and the diminishment of trust amongst citizens * A crisis in end of life care for the elderly because there are insufficient caregivers for them * Difficulties in funding entitlement programs because there are fewer workers relative to retirees * A decline in military strength * A decline in innovation since change comes from the young * A strain on mental health caused by permanent recession * Deflation caused by the ageing population All these negative effects could be summarized under the heading of “Underpopulation”. Underpopulation is usually defined as a state in which a country's population has declined too much to support its current economic system. Population decline can cause internal population pressures that then lead to secondary effects such as ethnic conflict, forced refugee flows, and hyper-nationalism. This is particularly true in regions where different ethnic or racial groups have different growth rates. An example of this is white nationalism. White nationalists seek to ensure the survival of the white race, and the cultures of historically white nations. Many white nationalists

believe Believe may refer to: *Belief, a psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true, with or without proof for such proposition *Faith, a belief in something which has not been proven Arts, entertainment, and me ...

that white people should therefore maintain a demographic majority and that

mass immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, an ...

of non-whites and low birth rates among whites are threatening the white race. Low fertility rates that cause long-term population decline can also lead to population ageing, an imbalance in the population age structure. Population ageing in Europe due to low fertility rates has given rise to concerns about its impact on social cohesion. A smaller national population can also have geo-strategic effects, but the correlation between population and power is a tenuous one. Technology and resources often play more significant roles. Since

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the "static" theory saw a population's absolute size as being one of the components of a country's national power. More recently, the "human capital" theory has emerged. This view holds that the quality and skill level of a labor force and the technology and resources available to it are more important than simply a nation's population size. While there were in the past advantages to high fertility rates, that "

demographic dividend Demographic dividend, as defined by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), is "the economic growth potential that can result from shifts in a population’s age structure, mainly when the share of the working-age population (15 to 64) is large ...

" has now largely disappeared.

Contemporary decline by country

The table below shows the countries that have been affected by population decline between 2010 and 2020. The term "population" used here is based on the ''de facto'' definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship, except for refugees not permanently settled in the country of asylum, who are generally considered part of the population of the country of origin. This means that population growth in this table includes net changes from immigration and emigration. For a table of natural population changes, see list of countries by natural increase. Figure includes Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Includes the

Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic Transnistria, officially the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR), is an unrecognised breakaway state that is internationally recognised as a part of Moldova. Transnistria controls most of the narrow strip of land between the Dniester riv ...

. Aftermaths of Hurricane Maria caused an extreme surge in the traditional migration flows to the

U.S. mainland The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...

. Syrian civil war that caused high civilian deaths and a massive refugee crisis. General socio-economic collapse following the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Rev ...

. General socio-economic collapse caused by the ongoing political crisis.

East Asia

Japan

Though Japan's natural increase turned negative as early as 2005, the 2010 census result figure was slightly higher, at just above 128 million, than the 2005 census. Factors implicated in the puzzling figures were more Japanese returnees than expected as well as changes in the methodology of data collection. However, the official count put the population as of October 1, 2015, at 127.1 million, down by 947,000 or 0.7% from the previous quinquennial census. The gender ratio is increasingly skewed; some 106 women per 100 men live in Japan. In 2019, Japan's population fell by a record-breaking 276,000; if immigration is excluded from the figures, the drop would have been 487,000. Given the population boom of the 1950s and 1960s, the total population is still 52% above 1950 levels.

South Korea

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...

's total fertility rate has been consistently lower than that of Japan, breaking below 1 in 2018, and fell to 0.81 in 2021. As a result, its population fell in 2020 for the first time in the country's history.

Taiwan

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

recorded more deaths than births in first quarter of 2021, despite recording virtually no COVID-19 deaths, likely to continue as a long-term demographic trend.

Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics

Population in the ex-USSR and

Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. The vast majority of the region is covered by Russia, whi ...

is rapidly shrinking due to low birth rates, very high death rates (linked to

alcoholism Alcoholism is, broadly, any drinking of alcohol that results in significant mental or physical health problems. Because there is disagreement on the definition of the word ''alcoholism'', it is not a recognized diagnostic entity. Predomi ...

and high rates of infectious diseases such as AIDS and TB), as well as high emigration rates. In Russia and the former communist bloc, birth rates fell abruptly after the fall of the Soviet Union, and death rates generally rose sharply. In addition, in the 25 years after 1989, some 20 million people from Eastern Europe are estimated to have migrated to Western Europe or the United States.

Armenia

Armenia's population peaked at 3,604,000 in 1991 and declined to 3,010,600 in the January 2015 state statistical estimate. This represents a 19.7% decrease in total population since the peak census figure.

Belarus

Belarus's population peaked at 10,151,806 in 1989 Census, and declined to 9,480,868 as of 2015 as estimated by the state statistical service. This represents a 7.1% decline since the peak census figure.

Estonia

In the last Soviet census of 1989, it had a population of 1,565,662, which was close to its peak population. The state statistics reported an estimate of 1,314,370 for 2016. This represents a 19.2% decline since the peak census figure.

Georgia

In the last Soviet census of 1989, it had a population of 5,400,841, which was close to its peak population. The state statistics reported an estimate of 4,010,000 for 2014 Census, which includes estimated numbers for quasi-independent Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This represents a 25.7% decline since the peak census figure, but nevertheless somewhat higher than the 1950 population.

Latvia

When Latvia split from the Soviet Union, it had a population of 2,666,567, which was very close to its peak population. The latest census recorded a population of 2,067,887 in 2011, while the state statistics reported an estimate of 1,986,086 for 2015. This represents a 25.5% decline since the peak census figure, only one of two nations worldwide falling below 1950 levels. The decline is caused by both a negative natural population growth (more deaths than births) and a negative net migration rate.

Lithuania

When Lithuania split from the Soviet Union, it had a population of 3.7 million, which was close to its peak population. The latest census recorded a population of 3.05 million in 2011, down from 3.4 million in 2001, further falling to 2,988,000 on September 1, 2012. This represents a 23.8% decline since the peak census figure, and some 13.7% since 2001.

Ukraine

Ukraine census in 1989 resulted in 51,452,034 people. Ukraine's own estimates show a peak of 52,244,000 people in 1993; however, this number has plummeted to 45,439,822 as of December 1, 2013. Having lost Crimean territory to Russia in early 2014 and subsequently experienced war, the population dropped to 42,981,850 as of August 2014. This represents a 19.7% decrease in total population since the peak figure, but 16.8% above the 1950 population even without Crimea. Its absolute total decline (9,263,000) since its peak population is the highest of all nations; this includes loss of territory and heavy net emigration. Eastern Ukraine may yet lose many Russian-speaking citizens due to new Russian citizenship law. An editorial projects significant gender and age imbalance in the population in Ukraine as a substantial problem if most refugees, as in other cases, do not return over time. Approximately 3.8 million more people have left the country during the

2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. A ...

, and several thousand have died in the conflict.

Hungary

Hungary's population peaked in 1980, at 10,709,000, and has continued its decline to under 10 million as of August 2010. This represents a decline of 7.1% since its peak; however, compared to neighbors situated to the East, Hungary peaked almost a decade earlier yet the rate has been far more modest, averaging −0.23% a year over the period.

Balkans

Albania

Albania's population in 1989 recorded 3,182,417 people, the largest for any census. Since then, its population declined to an estimated 2,893,005 in January 2015. The decline has since accelerated with a 1.3% drop in population reported in 2021 leaving a total population of 2.79 million. This represents a decrease of 12% in total population since the peak census figure.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina's population peaked at 4,377,033 in the 1991 Census, shortly before the

Yugoslav wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from ...

that produced tens of thousands of civilian victims and refugees. The latest census of 2016 reported a population of 3,511,372. This represents a 19.8% decline since the peak census figure.

Bulgaria

Bulgaria's population declined from a peak of 9,009,018 in 1989 and since 2001, has lost yet another 600,000 people, according to 2011 census preliminary figures to no more than 7.3 million, further down to 7,245,000. This represents a 24.3% decrease in total population since the peak, and a −0.82% annual rate in the last 10 years. The Bulgarian population has fallen by more than 844,000 people, or 11.5 percent, in the last decade, the National Institute of Statistics in Sofia said during a presentation of the results so far of the 2021 census, the first since 2011. The country currently employs just over 6.5 million people, compared to 7.3 million in the previous workforce.

Croatia

Croatia's population declined from 4,784,265 in 1991 to 4,456,096 (by old statistical method) of which 4,284,889 are permanent residents (by new statistical method), in 2011, a decline of 8% (11.5% by the new definition of permanent residency in 2011 census). The main reasons for the decline since 1991 are: low birth rates, emigration and war in Croatia. From 2001 and 2011 main reason for the drop in population is due to a difference in definition of permanent residency used in censuses till 2001 (censuses of 1948, 1953, 1961, 1971, 1981, 1991 and 2001) and the one used in 2011.Croatian Bureau of Statistic
Notes on methodology (Census 2011)
accessed 7 July 2013 By 2021 population dropped to 3,888,529, a 9,25% decrease from 2011 numbers.

Greece

Greece's population declined by about half a million people between its 2021 and 2011 census. The main drivers are increased emigration rates and lower birth rates following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

Romania

Romania's 1991 census showed 23,185,084 people, and the October 2011 census recorded 20,121,641 people, while the state statistical estimate for 2014 is 19,947,311. This represents a decrease of 16.2% since the historical peak in 1991.

Serbia

Serbia recorded a peak census population of 7,576,837 in 1991 in the Yugoslav era, falling to 7,186,862 in the 2011 census. That represents a decline of 5.1% since its peak census figure.

Resumed declines

Countries whose population declines halted temporarily, but have since resumed:

Russia

The decline in Russia's total population is among the largest in numbers, but not in percentage. After having peaked at 148,689,000 in 1991, the population then decreased, falling to 142,737,196 by 2008. This represents a 4.0% decrease in total population since the peak census figure. However, since then the Russian population has risen to 146,870,000 in 2018. This recent trend can be attributed to a lower death rate, higher birth rate, the annexation of Crimea and continued immigration, mostly from Ukraine and Armenia. It is some 40% above the 1950 population. Russia has become increasingly reliant on immigration to maintain its population; 2021 had the highest net immigration since 1994, despite which there was a small overall decline from 146.1 million to 145.4 million in 2021, the largest decline in over a decade. The natural death rate in January 2020, 2021, and 2022 have each been nearly double the natural birth rate.

Spain

Spanish population fell by over 100 thousand in 2020, likely to continue as a long-term demographic trend.

Italy

Italian population fell by a record amount in 2020, likely to continue as a long-term demographic trend.

Portugal

Between 2011 and 2021, Portugal's population declined from 10.56 to 10.34 million people. The fertility rate has been consistently below 2 since the early 1980s, and the gap is increasingly being made up with Brazilian immigrants.

Syria

Syria's population has declined due to the ongoing civil war in Syria. Many Syrians have emigrated to other Middle eastern countries. The civil war makes an accurate count of the Syrian population difficult, but the UN estimates that it peaked in 2010 at 21.4 million and dropped to 17.5 million in 2020, a decline of 18%.

Halted declines

Germany

In Germany a continuously low birth rate has been offset by waves of immigration. From 2002 to 2011 the population declined by 2 million, the most since the Cold War. The 2011 national census recorded a population of 80.2 million people, following which official estimates showed an increase of 3 million over the next decade. The official estimate for 2020 was a slight decrease from 2019. Third-party estimates show a slight increase, instead.

Ireland

In the current area of the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. ...

, the population has fluctuated dramatically. The population of Ireland was 8 million in 1841, but it dropped due to the

Irish famine The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a h ...

and later emigration. The population of the Republic of Ireland hit a bottom at 2.8 million in the 1961 census, but it then rose and in 2011 it was 4.58 million. As of 2020 it is estimated to be just under 5 million according to the country's Central Statistics Office.

Declines within regions or ethnic groups of a country

United States

In spite of a growing population at a national level, some formerly large American municipalities have dramatically shrunk after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, and in particular during the 1950s–1970s, due to suburbanization, urban decay,

race riots An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more contending ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's positio ...

, high crime rates, deindustrialization and emigration from the Rust Belt to the

Sun Belt The Sun Belt is a region of the United States generally considered to stretch across the Southeast and Southwest. Another rough definition of the region is the area south of the 36th parallel. Several climates can be found in the region — d ...

. For instance,

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

's population peaked at almost 2 million in 1953, then declined to less than 700,000 by 2020. Other cities whose populations have dramatically shrunk since the 1950s include

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

, Buffalo,

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...

Flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start ...

, Gary,

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, St. Louis,

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, Scranton, Youngstown and Wilmington (Delaware). In addition, the

depopulation of the Great Plains The depopulation of the Great Plains refers to the large-scale migration of people from rural areas of the Great Plains of the United States to more urban areas and to the east and west coasts during the 20th century. This phenomenon of rural-t ...

, caused by a very high rate of rural flight from isolated agricultural counties, has been going on since the 1930s. In addition, starting from the 1950s, the United States has witnessed the phenomenon of the white flight or white exodus, the large-scale migration of people of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous

suburb A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separ ...

an or exurban regions. The term has more recently been applied to other migrations by whites, from older, inner suburbs to rural areas, as well as from the U.S.

Northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

and Midwest to the warmer climate in the Southeast and Southwest. Migration of middle-class white populations was observed during the

Civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional racial segregation, discrimination, and disenfranchisement throughout the Unite ...

in the 1950s and 1960s out of cities such as

, Kansas City and Oakland, although racial segregation of public schools had ended there long before the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. Federal tribunals in the United States, federal court cases, and over Stat ...

' decision '' Brown v. Board of Education'' in 1954. In the 1970s, attempts to achieve effective desegregation (or "integration") by means of forced

busing Race-integration busing in the United States (also known simply as busing, Integrated busing or by its critics as forced busing) was the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools within or outside their local school districts in ...

in some areas led to more families' moving out of former areas. More recently, as of 2018,

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

had the largest ethnic/racial minority population in the United States; Non-Hispanic whites decreased from about 76.3 – 78% of the state's population in 1970 to 36.6%% in 2018 and 39.3% of the total population was Hispanic-Latino (of any race). A combination of long-term trends, housing affordability, and falling birthrates and rising death rates from the COVID-19 pandemic have caused as many as 16 US states to start declining in population.

France

The term 'Empty diagonal' is used for French departments that have low or declining populations. Due to continued emigration, many departments in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

are seeing declines in population, including: Aisne, Allier, Ardennes, Cantal, Charente, Cher,

Corrèze Corrèze (; oc, Corresa) is a department in France, named after the river Corrèze which runs through it. Although its prefecture is Tulle, its most populated city is Brive-la-Gaillarde. Corrèze is located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine regio ...

, Creuse,

Dordogne Dordogne ( , or ; ; oc, Dordonha ) is a large rural department in Southwestern France, with its prefecture in Périgueux. Located in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region roughly half-way between the Loire Valley and the Pyrenees, it is named ...

, Eure,

Eure-et-Loir Eure-et-Loir (, locally: ) is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers. It is located in the region of Centre-Val de Loire. In 2019, Eure-et-Loir had a population of 431,575.Haute-Marne Haute-Marne (; English: Upper Marne) is a department in the Grand Est region of Northeastern France. Named after the river Marne, its prefecture is Chaumont. In 2019, it had a population of 172,512.Haute-Saône, Haute-Vienne, Indre, Jura, Loir-et-Cher, Lot-et-Garonne, Lozère, Manche, Marne,

Mayenne Mayenne () is a landlocked department in northwest France named after the river Mayenne. Mayenne is part of the administrative region of Pays de la Loire and is surrounded by the departments of Manche, Orne, Sarthe, Maine-et-Loire, and I ...

Meuse The Meuse ( , , , ; wa, Moûze ) or Maas ( , ; li, Maos or ) is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a ...

, Moselle,

Nièvre Nièvre () is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, central-east France. Named after the river Nièvre, it had a population of 204,452 in 2019.Orne,

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

, Sarthe,

Somme __NOTOC__ Somme or The Somme may refer to: Places *Somme (department), a department of France *Somme, Queensland, Australia *Canal de la Somme, a canal in France *Somme (river), a river in France Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Somme'' (book), a ...

, Territoire de Belfort,

Vosges The Vosges ( , ; german: Vogesen ; Franconian and gsw, Vogese) are a range of low mountains in Eastern France, near its border with Germany. Together with the Palatine Forest to the north on the German side of the border, they form a singl ...

and Yonne. For more information, see the List of French departments by population.

South Africa

The term 'white flight' has also been used for large-scale post-colonial emigration of whites from Africa, or parts of that continent, driven by levels of violent crime and anti-colonial state policies. In recent decades, there has been a steady and proportional decline in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

's white community, due to higher birth rates among other South African ethnic groups, as well as a high rate of emigration. In 1977, there were 4.3 million

White South Africans White South Africans generally refers to South Africans of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, they are generally divided into the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of the Dutch East India Company's original settle ...

, constituting 16.4% of the population at the time. An estimated 800,000 emigrated between 1995 and 2016, citing

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in C ...

and a lack of employment opportunities.

India

The Parsis of India have one of the lowest fertility rates in the world (0.8 children per woman in 2017); this coupled with emigration has resulted in population decline at least since the 1940s. Their population has more than halved from the peak.

National efforts to confront declining populations

A country with a declining population will struggle to fund public services such as health care, old age benefits, defense, education, water and sewage infrastructure, etc. In order to maintain some level of economic growth and continue to improve its citizens’ quality of life, national efforts to confront declining populations will tend to focus on the threat of a declining GDP. Because a country's GDP is dependent on the size and productivity of its workforce, a country confronted with a declining population, will focus on increasing the size and productivity of that workforce.

Increase the size of the workforce

A country's workforce is that segment of its working age population that is employed. Working age population is generally defined as those people aged 15–64. Policies that could increase the size of the workforce include: * Natalism Natalism is a set of government policies and cultural changes that promote parenthood and encourage women to bear more children. These generally fall into three broad categories: # Financial incentives. These may include child benefits and other public transfers that help families cover the cost of children. # Support for parents to combine family and work. This includes maternity-leave policies, parental-leave policies that grant (by law) leaves of absence from work to care for their children, and childcare services. # Broad social change that encourages children and parenting For example, Sweden built up an extensive welfare state from the 1930s and onward, partly as a consequence of the debate following Crisis in the Population Question, published in 1934. Today, (2017) Sweden has extensive parental leave that allows parents to share 16 months paid leave per child, the cost divided between both employer and State. Other examples include Romania's natalist policy during the 1967–90 period and Poland's 500+ program. * Encourage more women to join the workforce. Encouraging those women in the working age population who are not working to find jobs would increase the size of the workforce. Female participation in the workforce currently (2018) lags men's in all but three countries worldwide. Among developed countries the workforce participation gap between men and women can be especially wide. For example, currently (2018), in South Korea 59% of women work compared with 79% of men. However, even assuming that more women would want to join the workforce, increasing their participation would give these countries only a short-term increase in their workforce, because at some point a participation ceiling is reached, further increases are not possible, and the impact on GDP growth ceases. * Stop the decline of men in the workforce. In the United States the labor force participation of men has been falling since the late 1960s. The

labor force participation rate Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refer ...

is the ratio between the size of the workforce and the size of the working age population. In 1969 the labor force participation rate of men in their prime years of 25–54 was 96% and in 2015 was under 89%. * Raise the retirement age. Raising the retirement age has the effect of increasing the working age population, but raising the retirement age requires other policy and cultural changes if it is to have any impact on the size of the workforce: # Pension reform. Many retirement policies encourage early retirement. For example, in 2018 less than 10% of Europeans between ages 64–74 were employed. Instead of encouraging work after retirement, many public pension plans restrict earnings or hours of work. # Workplace cultural reform. Employer attitudes towards older workers must change. Extending working lives will require investment in training and working conditions to maintain the productivity of older workers. One study estimated that increasing retirement age by 2–3 years per decade between 2010 and 2050 would offset declining working age populations faced by "old" countries such as Germany and Japan. * Increase

immigration Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, ...

. A country can increase the size of its workforce by importing more migrants into their working age population. Even if the indigenous workforce is declining, qualified immigrants can reduce or even reverse this decline. However, this policy can only work if the immigrants can join the workforce and if the indigenous population accepts them. For example, starting in 2019 Japan, a country with declining workforce, will allow five-year visas for 250,000 un-skilled guest workers. Under the new measure, between 260,000 and 345,000 five-year visas will be made available for workers in 14 sectors suffering severe labor shortages, including caregiving, construction, agriculture and shipbuilding. * Reduce

. The table above shows that long-term persistent emigration, often caused by what is called " Brain Drain", is often one of the major causes of a county's population decline. However,

research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

has also found that emigration can have net positive effects on sending countries, so this would argue against any attempts to reduce it.

Increase the productivity of the workforce

Development economists would call increasing the size of the workforce "extensive growth". They would call increasing the productivity of that workforce "intensive growth". In this case, GDP growth is driven by increased output per worker, and by extension, increased GDP/capita. In the context of a stable or declining population, increasing workforce productivity is better than mostly short-term efforts to increase the size of the workforce. Economic theory predicts that in the long term most growth will be attributable to intensive growth, that is, new

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scien ...

and new and better ways of doing things plus the addition of

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

and

education Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty ...

to spread them to the workforce. Increasing workforce productivity through intensive growth can only succeed if workers who become unemployed through the introduction of new technology can be retrained so that they can keep their skills current and not be left behind. Otherwise the result is technological unemployment. Funding for worker retraining could come from a robot tax, although the idea is controversial.

Long-term future trends

A long-term population decline is typically caused by sub-replacement fertility, coupled with a net immigration rate that fails to compensate for the excess of deaths over births. A long-term decline is accompanied by population aging and creates an increase in the ratio of retirees to workers and children. When a sub-replacement fertility rate remains constant, population decline accelerates over the long term. Because of the global decline in the fertility rate, projections of future global population show a marked slowing of population growth and the possibility of long-term decline. The table below summarizes the United Nations' projections of future population growth. Any such long-term projections are necessarily highly speculative. The UN divides the world into six regions. Under their projections, during the period 2045–2050 Europe's population will be in decline and all other regions will experience significant reductions in growth; furthermore, by the end of the 21st century (the period 2095–2100) three of these regions will be showing population decline and global population growth will be zero. Note: the UN's methods for generating these numbers are explained at this reference. The table shows that the UN predicts long-term decline of population growth rates in every region; however, short-term baby booms and healthcare improvements, among other factors, can cause reversals of trends. Population declines in Russia (1995–2010), Germany (1975–1985), and Ireland (1850–1960) have seen long-term reversals. The UK, having seen almost zero growth during the period 1975–1985, is now (2015–2020) growing at 0.6% per year.