Hello, this is Inside Economics and I'm Rachana Shanbhogue, the Economist business affairs editor.
I'm joined in the studio by our economics editor, Henry Curr.
Hi, Rachana.
And by Mike Bird, our Wall Street editor who's joining us from New York.
Hey, Mike.
Hey, Rachana.
Today we're going to talk about an issue that we've written and thought a lot about in recent years.
The consequences of the coming collapse of the world's population.
It's a topic that inspires great debate and no one's more exercised about it than Elon Musk, as this clip will show us.
I think one of the biggest risks to civilization is the low birth rate and the rapidly declining birth rate.
It is and yet so many people, including smart people,
think that there are too many people in the world and think that the population is growing out of control.
It's completely the opposite.
Please look at the numbers.
If people don't have more children, civilization is going to crumble.
Mark my words.
Now, how alarmed should you be about the consequences of population decline for the world's economy?
To help unpack this question we're going to look at four things.
One is what's actually happening to global fertility rates, why fertility rates have been falling,
then what governments can do if anything to avert a baby bust, and finally what the economic consequences are.