The Fight to Revive Europe’s Shrinking Rural Areas
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Quo Vadis Hispania? Part Two
AI Summary. Spain's immigrant and second-generation population totals at least 12m — roughly 25% of the total population — with nearly 40% of children under 5 either immigrants or born to immigrant parents.
Nicholas Eberstadt American Enterprise Institute- Date Posted:
Spain’s population of first and second generation immigrants from Latin America (~5.7mm), and Morocco or other African countries (~2.4mm), accounts for nearly one sixth of Spain’s population. There are ~37mm native Spaniards.
What happens when immigration reshapes a nation's demographic foundation?
Core argument: Spain's first- and second-generation immigrant population totals at least 12 million—roughly 24% of the country's 49 million people—making mass migration a defining structural feature of Spanish society.
Spain’s first and second-generation immigrant population comprises at least 12 million—almost 9.5 million immigrants and over 2.5 million of their descendants. [Spain’s population was ~49mm at the starts of 2025.] Over a third of Spain’s under 40 population are now first or second generation immigrants. And our numbers suggest that nearly two-fifths of Spain’s children under 5 are the children of immigrants, or immigrants themselves. Since our method misses second-generation immigrants not living with their parents, the absolute and relative size of Spain’s mass migration population is likely somewhat greater than we estimate.Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI
- Spain's first- and second-generation immigrant population totals at least 12 million—roughly 24% of the country's 49 million people—making mass migration a defining structural feature of Spanish society.
- Over one-third of Spain's under-40 population are first- or second-generation immigrants, concentrating demographic transformation most heavily in the cohorts that will drive workforce and electoral outcomes for decades.
- Nearly two-fifths of Spain's children under 5 are immigrants or children of immigrants, a share that understates the true figure because second-generation children living independently are excluded from the count.
Related Articles:
- Quo Vadis, Hispania? Part One — Spain's population growth between 2000 and 2025 was almost entirely (98%) driven by immigration, as natural population increase (births minus deaths) was negligible; since deaths have exceeded births since 2015, all future population growth depends entirely on continued immigration.
- Four Ways Europe’s Big Immigration Experiment Has Changed Spain — Spain's recent economic growth and job creation have been driven largely by immigration, with roughly 70% of new jobs since 2019 going to immigrants. This reliance reflects a fertility rate of just 1.1 births per woman — the lowest in the EU after Malta — and a domestic workforce increasingly
- Depopulation Globally and in the Asia-Pacific: The Shape of Things to Come — Nicholas Eberstadt warns that depopulation will stress families as smaller families “become ever less able to bear weight—even as the demands that might…
Quo Vadis, Hispania? Part One
AI Summary. Spain's population growth between 2000 and 2025 was almost entirely (98%) driven by immigration, as natural population increase (births minus deaths) was negligible; since deaths have exceeded births since 2015, all future population growth depends entirely on continued immigration.
Nicholas Eberstadt American Enterprise Institute- Date Posted:
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Btw 2000 and 2025, ~98% of Spain’s population growth was due to immigration. In 2024, about one-third of babies born in Spain had a foreign-born mother.
Does Spain's future population depend entirely on immigration?
Core argument: Spain’s natural population balance turned negative in 2015, making immigration the sole driver of any future population growth.
Without immigration, Spain’s population would have stagnated in the first quarter of the 21st century. According to official Spanish data, births exceeded deaths by barely 200,000 for the 2000-2025 period (2025 numbers still provisional)—or less than one half of 1% of Spain’s 2000 population. Thanks to its robust immigration inflows, however, Spain registered more population growth than any other EU country between 2000 and 2025. Virtually all (98%) of Spain’s population growth was due to immigration during those years. And since deaths have exceeded births in Spain since 2015, any future growth would have to come entirely from additional immigration.Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI
- Spain’s natural population balance turned negative in 2015, making immigration the sole driver of any future population growth.
- without continued inflows, Spain’s population will shrink.
Related Articles:
- European Stagnation Is Real — Six large American technology companies are worth more than all European stock markets combined, and the wealth they generate flows primarily to American households through equity ownership and high wages rather than to European workers or investors.
- Four Ways Europe’s Big Immigration Experiment Has Changed Spain — Spain's recent economic growth and job creation have been driven largely by immigration, with roughly 70% of new jobs since 2019 going to immigrants. This reliance reflects a fertility rate of just 1.1 births per woman — the lowest in the EU after Malta — and a domestic workforce increasingly
- Depopulation Globally and in the Asia-Pacific: The Shape of Things to Come — Nicholas Eberstadt warns that depopulation will stress families as smaller families “become ever less able to bear weight—even as the demands that might…
The Incredible Global Birth Crash
AI Summary. Israel is the only wealthy democracy where fertility has risen over the past generation, reaching a total fertility rate of 3.0, driven entirely by Jewish fertility growth; secular Jewish Israelis average nearly 2 births per woman—2x the rate of secular Jewish Americans.
Nicholas Eberstadt and Patrick Norrick American Enterprise Institute- Date Posted:
The rise in Israeli Jewish fertility is an exception to the collapse across advanced economies. TFR is 1.9 among secular Jews, 2.1–2.7 among traditional Jews and 3.7 among Dati Jews. Eberstadt suggests mimetics—social imitation—may help explain it.
Why is fertility rising in one wealthy democracy while falling everywhere else?
[Israel is] the lone affluent democracy where national fertility (estimated TFR) actually rose over the past generation (albeit slightly—from 2.9 in 1991 to 3 in 2021). This was powered wholly by a rise in Jewish fertility, from about 2.6 births per woman in 1995 to 3.1 in 2024. In 2022–24 fertility in Israel was over 20% higher for Jews than Muslims. Much has been made of Israel’s extraordinarily prolific Haredi community and its six-plus-children-per-woman estimated TFR. But fertility for the rest of Israeli Jewry is unique for modernity too. For secular, natural-religious and traditional Jews combined, the current average TFR is about 2.5 births per woman. And for secular Israeli Jews, per se, it is almost two births per woman.Related Articles:
- Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World — Global fertility has fallen below replacement level, meaning population will peak at roughly 9 billion around 2056 and then decline, driven by large existing generations masking the underlying shortfall in births.
- Depopulation Globally and in the Asia-Pacific: The Shape of Things to Come — Nicholas Eberstadt warns that depopulation will stress families as smaller families “become ever less able to bear weight—even as the demands that might…
- The Worldwide Fertility Crash Is Bringing Countries Back to Pre-Industrial Birth Levels — Japan's birth count has fallen below levels recorded over 150 years ago, with 2024 births at roughly 686,000 — less than 25% of the 1947 peak and lower than figures from the earliest available records.
Terra Incognita: The Economics of a Shrinking World
AI Summary. Global fertility has fallen below replacement level, meaning population will peak at roughly 9 billion around 2056 and then decline, driven by large existing generations masking the underlying shortfall in births.
Jesús Fernández-Villaverde and Patrick Norrick University of Pennsylvania- Date Posted:
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The UN appears to systematically overestimate births; e.g. 33 of 37 countries with high-quality statistics registered fewer births in 2024 than the UN had forecast. Fernández-Villaverde and Norrick infer humanity is below replacement fertility in 2026.
Will declining birth rates eventually shrink the global economy?
Core argument: Global fertility has fallen below replacement level as of 2026, ending humanity’s ability to sustain long-run population stability without a reversal in trends.
In Table A1 we compare the World Population Prospects (WPP) estimates of births in 2022-2023 with the official numbers reported by several countries. [A2 shows the full sample with the deviations.] As of 2026, humanity is likely to be below the replacement fertility level: we are having fewer births than we need to keep population constant in the long run. This astonishing fact does not mean that population has stopped growing. Because of momentum effects (the large cohorts of women born two or three decades ago are having their children now, and their own parents have not died yet), world population will keep growing for another 30 years or so. But unless trends change, it will peak at roughly 9 billion around 2056 and then start falling, first slowly, then fast.Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI
- Global fertility has fallen below replacement level as of 2026, ending humanity’s ability to sustain long-run population stability without a reversal in trends.
- Population momentum—driven by large cohorts of women now in peak childbearing years—will sustain growth for roughly 30 more years before world population peaks at approximately 9 billion around 2056 and begins declining.
Related Articles:
- The Demographic Future of Humanity: Facts and Consequences — The world’s 2024 total fertility rate (TFR) was likely ~2.17, below the replacement rate of 2.21, notes Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, intensifying…
- Depopulation Globally and in the Asia-Pacific: The Shape of Things to Come — Nicholas Eberstadt warns that depopulation will stress families as smaller families “become ever less able to bear weight—even as the demands that might…
- The Wealth of Working Nations — Japan achieved GDP growth per working-age adult of 31.9% between 1998 and 2019, slightly faster than the US at 29.5%. @King_ofSweden
The Worldwide Fertility Crash Is Bringing Countries Back to Pre-Industrial Birth Levels
AI Summary. Japan's birth count has fallen below levels recorded over 150 years ago, with 2024 births at roughly 686,000 — less than 25% of the 1947 peak and lower than figures from the earliest available records.
Nicholas Eberstadt American Enterprise Institute- Date Posted:
China’s total births in 2025 were about on par with those of the Qing Dynasty in the 1750s. Japan’s 2025 births were on par with those of the Tokugawa shogunate in the late 1600’s.
Is the global fertility collapse reversing a century of population growth?
Core argument: Japan’s 686,000 births in 2024 represent barely one-quarter of the 1947 peak of 2.7 million and fall below the country’s 1873 baseline, erasing more than 150 years of demographic growth.
The admirable Human Mortality Database, pioneered by researchers at Berkeley and Rostock, Germany, offers careful reconstructions of such historical birth numbers for dozens of developed countries. We can use their figures for our comparisons. Start with Japan. By 2024, the Japanese birth level was barely a quarter of its peak in 1947, 77 years earlier (686,000 vs. over 2.7 million). But Japan’s 2024 level was also significantly lower than the corresponding total for 1873—over 150 years earlier, at the dawn of the Meiji era, when Japan first started gathering such numbers. And remember—fertility levels around the world are still falling.Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI
- Japan’s 686,000 births in 2024 represent barely one-quarter of the 1947 peak of 2.7 million and fall below the country’s 1873 baseline, erasing more than 150 years of demographic growth.
- Fertility decline across developed economies has returned birth totals to pre-industrial levels, and the trajectory continues to fall.
Related Articles:
- Depopulation Globally and in the Asia-Pacific: The Shape of Things to Come — Nicholas Eberstadt warns that depopulation will stress families as smaller families “become ever less able to bear weight—even as the demands that might…
- The Demographic Future of Humanity: Facts and Consequences — The world’s 2024 total fertility rate (TFR) was likely ~2.17, below the replacement rate of 2.21, notes Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, intensifying…
- Baby Busts and Growth Booms: Demographic Change and the Macroeconomy — Cross-country evidence from 1950 to 2020 shows that a 1pp lower birth rate is associated with 22 log points (~25%) higher GDP per worker 40 years later and 29…
America’s Big Cities Are Rapidly Losing Kids
AI Summary. Children under 18 in large U.S. cities have declined 6x faster than the national rate, with children under 5 falling 15% in big cities versus 7% nationwide, even in cities with overall population growth.
Rachel Louise Ensign and Paul Overberg Wall Street Journal- Date Posted:
The number of children living in the US declined 1% overall btw 2015 and 2024, while the number living in large American cities fell 6%. The number of American children under the age of 5 fell 7%, while the number living in big cities fell 15%.
Why are children disappearing from America's largest cities?
Core argument: Children under 18 in large U.S. cities declined 6% over the past decade, six times the 1% national rate, signaling a structural demographic shift away from urban cores.
The number of children under 18 living in big U.S. cities is down 6% in the past decade, the Journal found, compared with a 1% decline nationwide. The drop is especially stark among families with little kids: The number of children under age 5 in big cities fell 15%, compared with a drop of 7% nationwide. Even cities that are gaining population are losing children. In all, the number of children declined in about two-thirds of the 38 U.S. cities with more than 500,000 residents. The Journal analyzed census data from 2015 through 2024, the most recent data available.Takeaways by Macro Roundup® AI
- Children under 18 in large U.S. cities declined 6% over the past decade, six times the 1% national rate, signaling a structural demographic shift away from urban cores.
- The exodus is sharpest among the youngest cohort: children under 5 in big cities fell 15%, more than double the 7% nationwide drop, compressing the future urban labor and consumer base.
- Child population declined in roughly two-thirds of the 38 U.S. cities with 500,000+ residents, including cities posting overall population gains, decoupling total growth from family retention.
Related Articles:
- Young Families Have Stopped Leaving Big Cities, For Now — The pandemic-era flight of families with young children from non-sunbelt cities ended in 2024. Sunbelt cities have seen growth over the entire period. Rural…
- City Parenting Has Become A Financial Flex — The child population in major U.S. cities has fallen sharply, but wealthy urban neighborhoods are seeing growth in white children, reversing the broader decline and concentrating family life among high-income residents in premium zip codes.
- The Demographic Outlook: 2026 to 2056 — CBO forecasts US population growth over the next decade will be 0.3% annually. Starting in 2030, net immigration will be the sole driver of population growth…