Global birth rates are falling…phones are a big reason why
FT News Briefing
Forhecz Topher
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 26 May 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In more than two-thirds of the world, the average number of children born to each woman has fallen below the “replacement rate”. Employment, home ownership and education are still big factors. But increasingly, so are mobile phones.
Mentioned in this podcast:
Why birth rates are falling everywhere all at once
Credit: The Columbus Dispatch
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Today’s FT News Briefing was hosted by Victoria Craig, and produced by Marc Filippino. Our show was mixed by Sam Giovinco. Additional help from Gavin Kallmann. Our executive producer is Topher Forhecz. Flo Phillips is the FT’s Global Head of Audio. The show’s theme music is by Metaphor Music.
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning from the Financial Times. It's Tuesday, May 26th, and this is a special edition of your FT News briefing. |
| 0:11.1 | Declining birth rates and shrinking populations have become huge topics for politicians all around the world. |
| 0:17.8 | Today, we're digging into what's contributing to it, the economic consequences |
| 0:21.9 | of it, and whether we need to stop it. The fundamental issue here is that when countries have |
| 0:29.7 | very low fertility rates, you have big problems coming down the trap. I'm Victoria Craig. Let's get into it. |
| 0:50.0 | Five days after he was sworn in as U.S. Vice President in 2025, J.D. Vance spoke at the anti-abortion March for Life rally in the nation's capital. |
| 0:53.9 | Let me say very simply, I want more babies in the United States of America. |
| 1:01.0 | But he focused less on the topic of abortion and more on the importance of growing a family. |
| 1:07.9 | Now it should be easier, easier to raise a family, easier to find a good job, easier to build |
| 1:14.1 | a home to raise that family in. |
| 1:16.4 | The benchmark of national success is not our GDP number or our stock market, but whether |
| 1:22.4 | people feel that they can raise thriving and healthy families in our country. |
| 1:35.4 | Vance is hardly the only politician or even business leader ringing alarm bells about birth rate trends in America. |
| 1:37.7 | Billionaire Elon Musk has labeled it, quote, the biggest risk to civilization. |
| 1:42.7 | And while declining birth rates are not a new phenomenon, |
| 1:46.1 | the trend is accelerating in countries all over the world, from high income to low income |
| 1:51.5 | ones. The FTs chief data reporter John Byrne Murdoch has been crunching the numbers and |
| 1:56.5 | talking to experts on this issue. He joins me now to suss it all out. Hi, John. Hello, thanks for having me. |
| 2:02.9 | Well, it's great to have you. Thanks for being here. So just walk me through some of these numbers to get us started. How significant is this shift? |
| 2:11.2 | So one thing to emphasize straight out of the gate here is that birth rates have been declining for decades or even centuries |
| 2:20.1 | over most of the world. But during the latter part of the last century and this century, |
| 2:26.1 | they were actually stabilising in most high and middle income countries. But then what is |
... |
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