[somenameforme]

In the past, if you could not afford to feed your family, you could literally starve to death. And people saved money by doing things like crafting clothes out of feed sacks. [1] It became common enough that companies would start selling their feed in sacks with floral designs, specifically with the intent of then being reused as clothing.

And that's just one among a vast array of lifestyle differences. Now a days the worst case scenario is that you end up on government assistance and have a less pleasant life. As for Asia, don't make the mistake of conflating Asia with just China/Hong Kong/Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. Asia's big, and those places are outliers in terms of fertility, with China's issues being entirely self inflicted. The average fertility rate across Asia is 2.3 [2], which is not great - but at least sustainable.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_sack_dress

[2] - https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/c416afed-en/index.html?i...

[dalyons]

2019 data is fairly out of date. 2023 shows India is below replacement now (2.1 and dropping). china drastically so (1.2 and dropping). Those are the biggest populations by a large margin. Projections for the region show continued declines, not sustainable at all.

[Rapzid]

That would have aged like milk if you'd said it when the stats were fresh.

The point here being the rate is actively crashing pretty much globally. The outliers would be anywhere it's not.