Fertility Rates

Tokyo-based company Oji Holdings announced in a press release that it would be terminating its domestic disposal diaper business for babies later this year. The company said it will not exit the diaper business altogether. Japan's severely low fertility rate has persisted for decades; it has not been at replacement rate since roughly the 1970s. With so few births of children, the country is growing steadily older.

Fertility rate to fall below replacement level in almost every world region by 2040: report. Fertility rates are expected to drop below replacement rate in every region of the world except Sub-Saharan Africa. The global fertility rate has dropped from 4.83 in 1950 to 2.23 in 2021. The total fertility rate is measured as the number of children born per woman.

The Black Death the pandemic of bubonic plague which swept Europe and Asia for about five years in the mid-1300s is widely believed to have reduced the global population by one-third. A new report has warned of the staggering social change posed by plummeting fertility rates which could also see the number of humans on our planet, currently standing at more than eight billion, fall within decades. Fertility is declining globally, with rates in more than half of all countries and territories in 2021 below replacement level.