Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: Population panic – worries about “depopulation” linked to low birth rates – has become pervasive, with dire predictions in both the short and long term. Yet demographers like us – experts who explicitly study population size, composition, and structure – are generally not highly concerned. Why is this? It’s because we understand the strengths and limitations of population projections. Projections can accurately describe how populations will change if we know future birth, death, and migration rates. But demographers are well aware that they don’t have a crystal ball – we can't fully anticipate economic shifts, political changes, global events, or how future generations will respond to their changing worlds. That’s why the farther we project from the present, the less accurate those projections are likely to be.
Language: English
Subfield: Demography
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Funders: Ohio State University, Johns Hopkins University, Hopkins Population Center, Johns Hopkins University, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
OpenAlex ID: W4413374025