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It's the END of the WORLD as We Know It - Population COLLAPSE | Fall of Nations | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: It's the END of the WORLD as We Know It - Population COLLAPSE
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Core Theme
Developed nations are facing a profound crisis due to drastically declining fertility rates, leading to shrinking populations, aging societies, and the potential collapse of economic and social structures. This demographic shift, driven by economic pressures and cultural changes, threatens the future vitality and sustainability of civilizations.
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It's the year 2035. Across the Western
world, something strange is unfolding.
The streets are clean, but quiet.
Hospitals turn away patients, not for
lack of beds, but for lack of doctors.
Factories stand idle. Schools sit empty.
Entire cities feel hollow. There was no
war, no virus, no sudden catastrophe.
Just a slow, quiet shift decades in the
making that no one took seriously until
it was too late. The economies that once
ruled the world are sputtering. The
institutions they built are crumbling.
And beneath it all lies one quiet number
that changed everything. So what happens
when the world's most advanced societies
run out of their most important
resource? Welcome to the crisis no one
prepared for and the future we're about
to inherit. Here's a number that should
terrify every government on Earth. 1.599.
1.599.
That's the United States fertility rate
for 2024, the lowest in American
history. It means the average woman in
America is having just 1.6 children in
her lifetime. Now, to keep the
population stable, you need 2.1. We're
not even close. And here's what that
number really means. Every year we stay
this low, we're guaranteeing a smaller
future, a weaker economy, fewer workers,
more burden on the young, less
innovation, less vitality. The
demographic momentum is already locked
in. In the early 1960s, American women
averaged 3.5 children. By 2007, it had
dropped to 2.1, right at replacement
level. Now, we've fallen off a
demographic cliff. Japan saw fewer than
700,000 births in 2024, the first time
below that threshold since records began
in 1899.
Their fertility rates a crushing 1.15.
That means for every 100 Japanese people
alive today, there will only be 55 in
the next generation.
South Korea tells an even darker story.
Their fertility rate hit 0.74 in 2024,
the lowest among OECD countries. At
0.74, each new generation is roughly 1/3
the size of the previous one. Italy
recorded just 370,000 births in 2024,
the fewest since the country unified in 1861.
1861.
Their fertility rate at 1.18.
But here's what keeps demographers up at
night. A landmark study published by the
Lancet projects that by 2050 3/4 of all
countries will have fertility rates
below replacement level. By 2100, a
staggering 97% of nations could be
shrinking. We're not talking about
slowing growth. We're talking about the
beginning of the end of entire civilizations.
civilizations.
And the consequences, they're already
unfolding. Picture an economy built on a
simple promise. Tomorrow we'll have more
people than today. More workers, more
consumers, more taxpayers. That promise
is breaking. In 1960, the United States
had about five workers for every retiree
paying into Social Security. By 2035,
just 10 years from now, there will be
only two workers per retiree. Two people
working, one person retired. The math
doesn't work. And it gets worse. Those
two workers won't just be supporting one
retiree through social security. They'll
also be funding Medicare, Medicaid,
infrastructure maintenance, national
defense, and everything else the
government provides while trying to save
for their own retirement in a system
that might not exist when they need it.
The pressure is already building. In
Japan, over 40% of people over 55 are
still working, the highest rate in half
a century. Many can afford to retire. In
2022, an 82-year-old Walmart cashier in
America went viral because viewers
realized he literally couldn't afford to
stop working. Strangers donated over
$100,000 so he could finally retire.
That's one person. What about the
millions of others in the same situation
who don't go viral, who just keep
working until they physically can't
anymore? That's the future we're
building. But here's where things spiral
into crisis. As populations age and
shrink, entire economic sectors
collapse. In Japan, diaper manufacturers
now sell more adult diapers than baby
ones. Schools close across rural America
because there aren't enough children. In
West Virginia, Mississippi, Illinois,
states seeing population decline,
communities face a vicious cycle. Young
people leave for opportunities
elsewhere. The remaining population
shrinks and ages. Tax revenues collapse.
Public services get cut, so more young
people leave. Ghost towns aren't just a
relic of the gold rush. They're the
future. One analysis warned that
thousands of US towns could virtually
vanish by 2100 if current trends
continue. This isn't science fiction.
It's demographic destiny. But you
haven't heard the worst part yet. The
same crisis that's destroying rural
towns is about to gut entire regions.
And when local governments collapse, the
services you take for granted vanish
overnight. Local governments across
America fund themselves through property
taxes and sales taxes. But when the
population shrinks, tax revenues
collapse. Schools get consolidated.
Hospitals close their doors. In 2024,
multiple US states reported population
declines. West Virginia, Mississippi,
Illinois, Maine, Pennsylvania,
Louisiana, all watching their tax bases
evaporate. The pattern is always the
same. Young people leave for
opportunities. The remaining population
ages, services get cut, which makes more
young people leave. And here's the
kicker. The federal government can't
bail them out. When everyone's drowning,
there aren't enough lifeboats. In Japan,
entire rural regions have been mapped as
vacant village zones, areas where almost
no young people remain. Where buildings
crumble and nature reclaims the land.
That's America's future if nothing
changes. But if you think shrinking
towns are bad, wait until you see what
happens when there aren't enough workers
to defend the country. Here's a question
no one wanted to answer 20 years ago.
Who's going to do the work? The US
military, once a magnet for young
recruits, is struggling. In 2023, the
Army, Navy, and Air Force, failed to
meet recruitment targets. The Army fell
short by 15,000 soldiers and almost 25%
gap. The cohort of Americans turning 18
peaked in 2025 at about 9.4 million. By
2029, it drops to 8 million. That's a
direct consequence of the 2008 financial
crisis. When the recession hit, births
plummeted. From 2008 to 2013, 2.3
million fewer babies were born than
demographers had projected. Then came
2020 and COVID 19. Effectively, baby
bust number two. Despite jokes about a
lockdown baby boom, the opposite
happened. Births fell again. Those
missing babies, they're the missing
recruits now. the missing workers, the
missing taxpayers. Japan already faces
this reality head on. Convenience stores
experiment with robot staff because they
can't hire enough clerks. Rural villages
have turned into ghost towns with wild
animals wandering through deserted
streets. But here's what really should
concern us. The world's factory floor is
shifting. For decades, made in China was
stamped on everything you owned. Not
anymore. Apple, which has made iPhones
in China since 2007, started moving
production to India. By 2025, 25% of all
iPhones will be made there. That's a $50
billion shift away from China. Samsung
already left for Vietnam. Nike making
more shoes in Vietnam than China. Now,
in 2023 alone, foreign companies
announced 378 major factory relocations
out of China. The reason is simple.
Chinese workers aren't cheap anymore.
Average factory wages have tripled in
the last decade. A factory worker in
Vietnam costs half as much. In India,
even less. And China's working age
population, it's been shrinking by 3
million people every year since 2012.
That's like losing the entire workforce
of Spain over a decade. You can't be the
world's factory floor when you're
running out of workers. But
manufacturing is just the beginning of
China's nightmare. The country that
lifted 800 million people out of poverty
over 40 years is now sliding backward.
And demographic collapse is the weapon
pulling the trigger. But the
manufacturing story goes deeper. Because
what's happening reveals something
terrifying about our global future. For
decades, economists assumed you could
always find cheap labor somewhere. If
China got expensive, move to Vietnam. If
Vietnam got expensive, move to
Bangladesh. But that pipeline is drying
up fast. Vietnam's fertility rate
already dropped to 2.0, just barely at
replacement level. Thailand's at 1.3.
Even Bangladesh, long a source of cheap
labor, has fallen to 1.9 and dropping by
2100. According to demographic
projections, only a handful of African
nations will have growing populations.
Almost everywhere else will be shrinking
simultaneously, which raises a question
no one wants to answer. In a world where
every country desperately needs workers
and no one has a surplus population, who
wins? The answer is probably the
countries that remain open and welcoming
to immigrants. The United States,
Canada, Australia, nations built on
immigration might sustain themselves by
attracting global talent. But closed
societies, Japan, China, much of Eastern
Europe, they're building walls right as
they need the world most. And even
immigration can't save everyone because
when the source countries themselves are
aging, the math simply doesn't work.
What happens when the world's most
powerful economies start breaking? when
there aren't enough young people to
staff hospitals, defend borders, or care
for the elderly. The answer, it's
already happening. And China, the
country that lifted 800 million people
out of poverty, is about to show us
exactly how ugly it gets. For decades,
China's government had a deal with its
people. Give up political freedom, get
economic prosperity in return. For 40
years, that deal worked. People got
richer, lives improved, but now that
deal is falling apart. Remember that
software engineer in Shenzhen who bought
a $400,000 apartment in 2020? The one
who thought real estate was the safest
investment because prices always went
up. His apartment is now worth half of
what he paid. And he's not alone. Across
China, middle class families are
watching their wealth evaporate. Youth
unemployment hit 21.3% before the
government simply stopped publishing the
numbers. And China's population, it fell
in 2022 for the first time in 60 years.
Their working age population will drop
by nearly half by 2100 if current trends
hold. But here's what really matters.
When young people lose hope in the
future, they stop having children. And
when they stop having children, there is
no future. In South Korea, they call
them the sampo generation. Those who've
given up on three things: jobs,
marriage, and children. In China, it's
lying flat, refusing to participate in
the rat race because they can't win
anyway. In Japan, a significant fraction
of young people report little interest
in dating or relationships at all. This
isn't happening in one country. It's
happening everywhere. A recent survey
found that 44% of American young adults
who don't yet have kids said it's
unlikely they ever will. The most common
reasons, money, housing costs, work life
balance, climate anxiety, the sheer
burden of raising a child in a system
that offers almost no support. In the
US, child care costs more than college
tuition in many states. In 2023, about
65% of Americans were living paycheck to
paycheck. Nearly 40% can't cover a $400
emergency expense. Starting a family
feels like an unaffordable luxury. So,
people are making a rational choice.
They're not having kids. But what
happens when an entire generation makes
that choice? Here's the brutal truth
about demographic collapse. It feeds on
itself. Fewer children today means fewer
potential parents tomorrow, which means
even fewer children the day after. It's
an extinction spiral, and once it
starts, it's almost impossible to
reverse. By 2050, one in six people
worldwide will be over 65. That's up
from 1 in 11 in 2019. In Japan, seniors
already make up nearly 30% of the
population. By 2035, 1 in three Chinese
people will be over 60. That's around
450 million elderly people. More seniors
than the entire population of the United
States. And who's going to take care of
them? China's typical family structure
now looks like this. Two parents, four
grandparents, and just one child. They
call them 421 families. That one child
is supposed to support six older people.
It's mathematically impossible. In
America, roughly 28% of seniors live
alone, far higher than in family
oriented cultures. By the time Gen Z
reaches old age, that number could
skyrocket given many aren't marrying or
having kids. An epidemic of elderly
loneliness is brewing. And loneliness
isn't just sad, it's deadly. Studies
show it increases mortality and healthc
care use comparable to smoking. But
perhaps the scariest part of this crisis
is how quiet it is. There's no
explosion, no dramatic collapse, just a
slow fade. Empty playgrounds, closed
schools, hospitals overwhelmed with
elderly patients, pension systems
collapsing, local governments cutting
services. A society that built itself on
the promise of growth, slowly
discovering that promise was a lie. And
then there's the question no one wants
to discuss. What happens to dating,
relationships, and human connection
itself? Because here's something bizarre
that's been happening over the last
decade. Young people are having less sex
than any generation in modern history.
In California's health survey, the share
of young adults reporting no sexual
partners in the past year jumped from
22% in 2011 to 38% in 2021.
Nationally, about one in three Gen Z men
and one in four Gen Z women had no sex
in the past year. The reasons are
complicated. Social media and online
socialization replacing in-person
connections. Rising anxiety, economic
stress. The pandemic made it worse.
Lockdowns nuked everyone's social
skills. Some young people are opting out
entirely. The child-free movement,
people voluntarily choosing never to
have kids, has grown significantly. But
here's what that means on a societal
level. So, here's the billiondoll
question. Can we fix this? The short
answer, we don't know. Because no
society has ever reversed a long-term
fertility decline. But that doesn't mean
we're not trying. France spends about 4%
of GDP on family support, public
daycare, monthly child allowances,
generous parental leave. Their fertility
rate at 1.8 is among Western Europe's
highest. Still below replacement, but
better than most. Nordic countries
provide 12 plus months of paid parental
leave, subsidized child care, flexible
work arrangements. Their rates hover
around 1.6 to 1.8. South Korea's
government has spent over $270 billion
on prob birth initiatives over the past
decade. The result, their fertility rate
fell from 1.2 to 72 over that same
period. Money alone doesn't work. And
here's what the data reveals about the
deeper problem. Women in low fertility
countries report that they would like to
have more children than they end up
having. The gap between desired and
actual fertility is growing. In South
Korea, surveys show many women cite
career sacrifice and unequal child care
burdens as major deterrence. In Japan,
the corporate culture is notoriously
inflexible. Working mothers face
enormous social pressure. In the United
States, the average cost of child care
exceeds $10,000 per year per child in
most states. Across the developed world,
housing has become prohibitively
expensive. Since 1960, median home
prices in the US have surged 121% after
inflation, while median income rose only 29%.
29%.
In the 1960s, an average home cost about
2 years salary. Today, more like 5
years. In expensive cities, it's 10
times annual income. When young people
can barely afford rent, many conclude
they cannot afford children. Economic
shocks echo through generations. Those
missing babies from 2008 to 2013 are
today's missing 18y olds. Tomorrow's
missing workers and parents. Some
countries are banking on immigration.
Canada now accepts about 500,000
immigrants per year to counter aging and
labor shortages. The United States
historically has used immigration to
sustain population growth. Immigration
has been key to US technological
leadership. More than 50% of America's
billion-dollar startups were founded by
immigrants. But the pipeline is drying
up. By 2100, only a handful of African
nations might still have growing
populations. When everyone needs workers
and no one has a surplus population, who
wins? Others are betting on technology.
Japan is pioneering elder care robots.
AI might handle jobs that humans used to
do. But here's the thing. Robots don't
pay taxes. They don't consume products.
They don't have children. An economy of
machines might produce goods
efficiently. But if no one has jobs or
income to buy those goods, what's the
point? Some economists argue that
automation could massively increase
productivity, allowing fewer workers to
support more retirees.
But that assumes the benefits get
distributed fairly. History suggests
otherwise. If automation concentrates
wealth in the hands of a few tech owners
while millions are jobless, you don't
get utopia. You get social instability.
And AI can't solve everything. Many
essential roles require human touch. AI
can't nurse you with empathy. It can't
teach and inspire a classroom of kids
with genuine care. Technology might help
us manage the crisis, but it can't solve
the fundamental problem. Societies need
children to survive.
Or maybe maybe we're witnessing
something far darker. Let's return to
where we started, the year 2035.
Quiet streets, empty schools, hospitals
turning patients away. In 10 years, this
won't be a hypothetical scenario. It
will be reality in parts of the
developed world. The youngest
generations, millennials and Gen Z, will
be in their 30s and 40s. They'll be
caring for aging baby boomers while
trying to raise children in an economy
that offers them no support. They'll be
crushed by taxes to fund pensions.
They'll likely never receive themselves.
They'll watch rural towns become ghost
towns. They'll serve in militaries that
can't recruit enough soldiers. And
they'll ask the question no one wants to
answer. Was it worth it? was building a
world where children became too
expensive, too burdensome, too
incompatible with modern life, was that
progress? Because here's the
uncomfortable truth at the heart of this
crisis. A society that has no room for
children has no future. We built cities
where apartments are too small for
families. We built economies where
having a child means career suicide. We
built a culture where parenthood is seen
as a lifestyle choice, optional,
inconvenient, something to be outsourced
or avoided. And now we're paying the
price. The lights might stay on, the
skyscrapers might still stand. But if
there are no children playing in the
streets, no laughter in the schools, no
hope for tomorrow, what exactly have we
built? Here's what keeps demographic
experts awake at night. Time is running
out. Every year of ultra- low birth
rates creates a deficit that takes
generations to fix. You can't
manufacture 20 year olds overnight. It
takes 20 years. And the clock started
ticking decades ago. If we want to avoid
the darkest version of 2035, we need to
act now. Not next year, not after the
next election. Now. That means making
radical changes. Affordable housing.
Young people can't have families when a
starter home costs 10 times their annual
income. Universal health care. Parents
shouldn't have to choose between career
and children. Paid parental leave. Not 2
weeks, not 3 months. Real time to bond
and care for newborns. Flexible work
arrangements. Remote work proved it's
possible. Make it permanent. Cultural
change. We need to stop treating
children as burdens and start seeing
them as the most valuable investment a
society can make. And maybe, just maybe,
we need to rediscover a simple truth our
ancestors understood.
Family, community, and the next
generation matter more than career
advancement, material wealth, or
personal freedom. That's not a popular
message, but it might be the only one
that saves us. So, here's where we are.
Global fertility rates are collapsing.
By 2100, 97% of countries could be below
replacement level. The working age
population is shrinking. Pension systems
are buckling. Entire regions are
becoming ghost towns. Governments have
spent hundreds of billions trying to
boost birth rates. Almost nothing has
worked. And time is running out. This
isn't a distant crisis. It's happening
now. The question isn't whether the
world will look different in 2035, 2050,
or 2100. The question is how different
will it be. Will we find a way to build
societies where people actually want to
have children? Where raising the next
generation isn't an act of financial
suicide, but of hope? Or will we
continue down this path until the
schools stand empty, the factories
close, and the lights slowly dim?
Because make no mistake, this is the end
of the world as we know it. Not with a
bang, but with a whisper. The whisper of
playgrounds with no children. So, what
do you think? Is this a crisis we can
solve, or are we already too late? Drop
your thoughts in the comments. And if
you want more analysis on the forces
reshaping our world, hit subscribe
because the future is coming whether
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