| Like any single-cause explanations of the fertility collapse, it's fairly easy to poke holes in it. Usually, you just name countries as a counter-argument. For example, North Korea. Better life now than in the 90s, lower fertility. What hope for the future was there in the 1930s Ukraine, in the middle of an artificial famine that killed millions? Higher fertility than mid-2010s Ukraine (nowadays you can blame the war for an additional drop). Eritrea and Ethiopia are right next door to each other, they have high birth rates dropping completely in lock-step, despite Eritrea being essentially shut off from the outside world in terms of disruptive tech - no Internet for most, no social media or whatever other bogey man you can come up with and blame for "disrupting the culture". Countries that are essentially ignoring climate change have falling birth rates too, as do countries where people aren't into Western-style contemplative existential dread. I haven't come up with an alternative answer, mind you. So far, I've just been noting how easy it is to poke holes in all available single-cause explanations. |
We still don't know what a "modern depopulated country" might look like, that is a whole country where the population is more than 10% below its peak level by natural decline. It's visible in some areas and cities, but not the whole country level.