Economists worry about ‘depopulation bomb’
July 29, 2025
» Continue to this story on Wall Street Journal
CWN Editor's Note: Two economists at the University of Texas at Austin warned of depopulation in a new book, After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People.
Dean Spears and Michael Geruso warned “fellow liberals and progressives” that after peaking in 2080, population “will not fall to 6 billion or 4 billion or 2 billion and hold there” if birth rates remain below replacement levels in much of the world. Rather, “humanity could hasten its own extinction if birth rates stay too low for a long time.”
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