Science Alert named European, Asian and other countries in the world that are most susceptible to demographic time bombs due to declining fertility and increasing proportion of older people. These include the United States, Spain, Italy, South Korea, as well as Japan and China.
A demographic time bomb is a situation when there is a decrease in the working share of the population. To avoid this, there must be 2.2 children per woman, but fertility rates in many developed countries have fallen below two. The consequences can be mitigated by the influx of migrant workers, but these measures cannot completely stop the crisis if a significant number of citizens leave for work in other countries.
In the United States, the birth rate is reported to have fallen to a record low of 1.76 and life expectancy reached 78.7 years. In some states, the cost of childcare per year is up to ten thousand dollars, which is the reason for the abandonment of children. The share of pensioners is growing, but the demographic bomb has been slowed down by a large flow of migrants.
In Spain, the fertility rate is 1.5 and the death rate exceeds the birth rate. The population is increasing only due to newcomers, and some settlements have almost completely died out. Similar trends are observed in Italy, where people are abandoning large numbers of children due to financial difficulties. Bulgaria's population of 1.46 is shrinking at an all-time high and is expected to reach 5.4 million by 2050. Only 1.52 million people will remain in Latvia by that time.
In Japan, the ratio reaches 1.44, and in South Korea - 1.26. In China, families are allowed to have two children instead of one, but even so, by 2030, the age of a quarter of the population will reach 60 years (in 2010, the elderly accounted for only about 13 percent of the population). Singapore has one of the lowest birth rates (0.83), but the authorities are planning to slow the demographic bomb with immigration.