Across the developed world, birth rates are tumbling. That poses a fiscal threat: a smaller working-age population will struggle to fund pensions and health care for a growing number of old folk. In the face of a sudden shortfall of babies, governments face a problem: how do you incentivise people to have more kids?
Hosts: Mike Bird, Alice Fulwood and Tom Lee-Devlin. Guests: anthropologist Ayo Wahlberg and The Economist’s Cerian Richmond Jones.
To hear more on this topic, listen to our Drum Tower podcast on why China’s one-child policy is still having an impact on the country’s birth rate.
Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts
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