Countries such as Spain have seen their fertility rate more than halve from 1970 to 2025. One projection sees Spain’s population decline by a staggering 50% or more by the end of this century. For countries such as the UK, only mass immigration into the health and care industries has kept its population stable. One estimate argues that to sustain this policy, nearly half of the UK population will be foreign-born by the end of the century.

These falling fertility rates will lead to the depopulation of native demographics through the following decades. One projection sees a 49-million-person shrinkage in the working-age population of the EU. This will create a top-heavy generational pyramid which will naturally put great strain on health care and old age support systems. Hungary – whose rate has fallen by a quarter from 1970 to 2025 – is expected to spend as much as 5% of its GDP on pro-natal policies in the future to reverse such trends. However, government initiatives attempting to increase fertility rates, such as subsidised childcare, will be largely ineffective in the future according to the latest research.

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