The human race has likely fallen below replacement fertility for the first time in recorded history, according to a new paper in the Annual Review of Economics.

This is a far cry from stark warnings from the 1970s onwards that the world was facing a devastating overpopulation crisis. Those warnings caused a paradigm shift in cultural and political attitudes away from child-bearing and prompted states and transnational organisations to adopt a host of anti-natal policies.

Now however, economists Jesús Fernández-Villaverde and Patrick Norrick say there is an “astonishing” demographic shift: “As of 2026, humanity is likely to be below replacement level: we are having fewer births than we need to keep population constant in the long run,” the authors wrote.

They add that while global populations will continue to grow for another three decades due to momentum, a rapid and accelerating decline in worldwide births is firmly underway.

“As far as we can tell, this has never happened before in our history as a species, not even during wars or pandemics.”