Depopulation globally and in the Asia-Pacific: the shape of things to come.

This article addresses the prospect of global depopulation and its far-reaching implications. It argues that the advent of global population decline may come sooner than commonly anticipated, because of remarkable drops in birth rates underway in low-income regions as well as more developed locales. Notwithstanding uncertainties about the precise level of planetary fertility (due mainly to limited statistical capabilities in Africa), it is clear that overall childbearing patterns for our species are at most only slightly above the replacement level today-and might already actually have fallen below that significant threshold. Prolonged sub-replacement fertility will have far-reaching social, economic, and political ramifications. This study attempts to describe some of them and offers an introductory exploration of the new questions that could face problem solvers in the future.