EU's baby bust: New data reveals the terrifying population plunges across the continent that are set to condemn future generations to life in a crippled economy

By OLIVER PRICE, DATA JOURNALIST

Published: | Updated:

Births in the EU last year plunged to an all-time low, heightening 'underpopulation' fears.

Just 3.67million babies were born across the 27 nations in the Bloc in 2023. 

This was down 5.5 per cent on 2022, marking the biggest percentage drop since records began in 1961. 

Double-digit percentage falls were recorded in the worst-affected countries, with Romania experiencing a 13.9 per cent decrease.

Freefalling birth rates have triggered doomsday warnings about an impending population collapse, which experts believe will cripple western economies.

Immigration will be needed to avoid the devastating consequences in Britain and the US, demographers delving into the topic have warned. Otherwise, the ever-declining birth rate could leave powerhouses with too few younger people to work, pay tax and look after the elderly.

After Romania, Poland (10.7 per cent), Czechia (10 per cent), Latvia (9.2 per cent), and Slovakia (7.7 per cent) saw the biggest year-on-year decline in births.

Wealthy EU nations, including France and Germany, also saw a significant drop.

Just five nations saw any rise in total births – Malta (3.6 per cent), Portugal (2.4 per cent), Bulgaria (1.1 per cent), Cyprus (1 per cent) and Ireland (0.5 per cent).

The threat of underpopulation sparked by 'baby busts' is a pet topic of Elon Musk

In 2017, the eccentric Tesla billionaire said the number of people on Earth is 'accelerating towards collapse but few seem to notice or care'. And in 2021 he warned that civilisation is 'going to crumble' if people don't have more children.

While some nations are set to see their populations halve, others, especially in Africa, are forecast to log an eight-fold increase by the 22nd century.

Every single EU nation has a fertility rate – the average number of kids per childbearing woman – well below the replacement rate of 2.1, the number needed for the population to remain static.

The fertility rate in England and Wales in 2023, according to the latest Office for National Statistics report, was just 1.44 – the lowest on record.

The UK hasn't had an average fertility rate above 2.1 since the early 70s.

No authority has a fertility rate above 'replacement' level.

Experts believe the trend is partly down to women focusing on their education and careers and couples waiting to have children until later in life.

The UK's fragile economy and cost-of-living crisis is also putting people off having children, some believe, evidenced by abortion rates simultaneously spiking.

Others cite the environment, with people fearing that they will worsen their carbon footprint by having a child or that their child will have a bleak future due to climate change. 

There is no evidence that Covid vaccines are to blame, with scientists insisting there is no proof they harm fertility.

Professor Melinda Mills, a demographer at the University of Oxford, told the Telegraph that with more educated women pursuing careers, they find it harder to find childcare.

She also said that many wait until their mid-30s which, due to biological factors, can lead to fewer people being successful in having children.

'You are starting to have children when you are biologically less able to have children,' she told the Telegraph.

'You might be able to have one child but because you're starting so late biologically, it's really difficult to have more children. People are getting caught out on that where they're just running out of time.'

Declining birth rates mean that the world's biggest economies will have to become more reliant on immigration as the population ages.

While many scientists have warned about the threat of overpopulation on the environment, food and housing supplies, underpopulation is also a challenge.

Any decline in birth rates — combined with elderly people living longer thanks to medical advances — will see a drastic shift in the demographics of a population, with a higher number of older people in relation to young.

Experts worry this will leave too few taxpayers to fund public services, too few workers to fill key roles in health and social care services and too few people to buy houses and cars, upsetting global economics.

Some nations have even taken to paying new parents for having children in a bid to increase the birth rate.

Dr Natalia Bhattacharjee, of the University of Washington's School of Medicine, said the trends will completely reconfigure the global economy and the international balance of power.

In a paper published last year about the threat of underpopulation, she said: 'The implications are immense.

'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.

'Global recognition of the challenges around migration and global aid networks are going to be all the more critical when there is fierce competition for migrants to sustain economic growth and as sub-Saharan Africa's baby boom continues.'

Economist Professor Andrew J Scott told the Telegraph that low birth rates are already becoming a 'biting point' in the EU, with most employment growth in the last decade coming from over-50s.

He said due to more old people and fewer young people. 'I don't think firms have yet woken up to the reality of a labour market where they've got to start thinking that actually my workforce is older,' Professor Scott added.

The global population is not expected to shrink anytime soon. 

There are roughly 8billion people around the world currently and the figure is expected to peak close to 2100.

Although, credible studies suggest that the number of people worldwide could start to tail off as early as 2070.

So what is behind the West's baby bust? 

Women worldwide, on average, are having fewer children now than previous generations.

The trend, down to increased access to education and contraception, more women taking up jobs and changing attitudes towards having children, is expected to see dozens of countries' population shrink by 2100.

Dr Jennifer Sciubba, author of 8 Billion and Counting: How Sex, Death, and Migration Shape Our World, told MailOnline that people are choosing to have smaller families and the change 'is permanent'.

'So it's wise to focus on working within this new reality rather than trying to change it,' she said.

Sex education and contraception

A rise in education and access to contraception is one reason behind the drop off in the global fertility rate.

Education around pregnancy and contraception has increased, with sex education classes beginning in the US in the 1970s and becoming compulsory in the UK in the 1990s.

'There is an old adage that "education is the best contraception" and I think that is relevant' for explaining the decline in birth rates, said Professor Allan Pacey, an andrologist at the University of Sheffield and former chair of the British Fertility Society.

Elina Pradhan, a senior health specialist at the World Bank, suggests that more educated women choose to have fewer children due to concerns about earning less when taking time off before and after giving birth.

In the UK, three in 10 mothers and one in 20 fathers report having to cut back on their working hours due to childcare, according to ONS data.

They may also have more exposure to different ideas on family sizes through school and connections they make during their education, encouraging them to think more critically about the number of children they want, she said.

And more educated women may know more about prenatal care and child health and may have more access to healthcare, Ms Pradhan added.

Professor Jonathan Portes, an economist at King's College London, said that women's greater control over their own fertility means 'households, and women in particular, both want fewer children and are able to do so'.

More women entering the workplace

More women are in the workplace now than they were 50 years ago — 72 vs 52 per cent — which has contributed to the global fertility rate halving over the same time period.

Professor Portes also noted that the drop-off in the birth rate may also be down to the structure of labour and housing markets, expensive childcare and gender roles making it difficult for many women to combine career aspirations with having a family.

The UK Government has 'implemented the most anti-family policies of any Government in living memory' by cutting services that support families, along with benefit cuts that 'deliberately punish low-income families with children', he added.

As more women have entered the workplace, the age they are starting a family has been pushed back. Data from the ONS shows that the most common age for a women who were born in 1949 to give birth was 22. But women born in 1975, were most likely to have children when they were 31-years-old.

In another sign that late motherhood is on the rise, half of women born in 1990, the most recent cohort to reach 30-years-old, remained childless at 30 — the highest rate recorded.

Women repeatedly point to work-related reasons for putting off having children, with surveys finding that most women want to make their way further up the career ladder before conceiving.

However, the move could be leading to women having fewer children than they planned. In the 1990s, just 6,700 cycles of IVF — a technique to help people with fertility problems to have a baby — took place in the UK annually. But this skyrocketed to more than 69,000 by 2019, suggesting more women are struggling to conceive naturally.

Declining sperm counts

Reproductive experts have also raised the alarm that biological factors, such as falling sperm counts and changes to sexual development, could 'threaten human survival'.

Dr Shanna Swan, an epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, authored a ground-breaking 2017 study that revealed that global sperm counts have dropped by more than half over the past four decades.

She warned that 'everywhere chemicals', such as phthalates found in toiletries, food packaging and children's toys, are to blame. The chemicals cause hormonal imbalance which can trigger 'reproductive havoc', she said.

Factors including smoking tobacco and marijuana and rising obesity rates may also play a role, Dr Swan said.

Studies have also pointed to air pollution for dropping fertility rates, suggesting it triggers inflammation which can damage egg and sperm production.

However, Professor Pacey, a sperm quality and fertility expert, said: 'I really don't think that any changes in sperm quality are responsible for the decline in birth rates.

'In fact, I do not believe the current evidence that sperm quality has declined.'

He said: 'I think a much bigger issue for falling birth rates is the fact that: (a) people are choosing to have fewer children; and (b) they are waiting until they are older to have them.'

Fears about bringing children into the world

Choosing not to have children is cited by some scientists as the best thing a person can do for the planet, compared to cutting energy use, travel and making food choices based on their carbon footprint.

Scientists at Oregon State University calculated that the each child adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the 'carbon legacy' of a woman. Each metric ton is equivalent to driving around the world's circumference.

Experts say the data is discouraging the climate conscious from having babies, while others are opting-out of children due to fears around the world they will grow up in.

Dr Britt Wray, a human and planetary health fellow at Stanford University, said the drop-off in fertility rates was due to a 'fear of a degraded future due to climate change'.

She was one of the authors behind a Lancet study of 10,000 volunteers, which revealed four in ten young people fear bringing children into the world because of climate concerns.

Professor David Coleman, emeritus professor of demography at Oxford University, told MailOnline that peoples' decision not to have children is 'understandable' due to poor conditions, such as climate change.

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