Most demographers now predict that human population will plateau
There are nevertheless vast differences between demographic developments in different parts of the world. Many wealthy countries will see their population decline - unless they manage to compensate the same with drastically increased levels of immigration. It would take a complete reversal of policy to allow for this to happen in traditionally immigration-sceptic cultures like Japan or South Korea.<p>Immigration from other cultures brings its own set of problems of course and may lead to major social and economic issues in these countries. Newly arriving immigrants frequently lack the education to be easily absorbed into a highly skilled workforce. It may take at least one generation or more to overcome this at great economic cost.<p>But then there are also completely speculative developments that might happen as a society’s population retracts. Property ownership is poised to be more easily attainable for average-income people. As a result, there may be an increase in single-earner families, where the spouse can devote her (or his) time to looking after the children. Which in turn may increase the average number of children that families can afford to have. Again, that’s entirely hypothetical, just one scenario that could result from all this.