Why will low birthrate in Europe trigger ‘Staggering social change’?
Al Jazeera
A recent report by the Lancet says Western countries will be forced to open borders to migration if they are to survive.
The Black Death – the pandemic of bubonic plague which swept Europe and Asia for about five years in the mid-1300s – is widely believed to have reduced the global population by one-third.
But almost 700 years after this infamous pandemic became the last worldwide phenomenon to reduce global population levels by such a huge amount, a new report has warned of the “staggering social change” posed by plummeting fertility rates which could also see the number of humans on our planet, currently standing at more than eight billion, fall within decades.
According to a recent global fertility study published in the international medical journal, The Lancet, “Fertility is declining globally, with rates in more than half of all countries and territories in 2021 below replacement level”.
Natalia V Bhattacharjee, one of the report’s co-lead authors, said the “implications are immense” – particularly for countries in Western Europe, which are currently seeing massive unrest over migration levels.
“These future trends in fertility rates and live births will completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power and will necessitate reorganising societies,” she stated.
