Fertility decline in Asia: Trends, implications and futures (Editorial)

Asia's fertility decline over the past three decades has been of truly historical significance on a planetary scale. The unexpectedly rapid fertility transition in the continent that is home to more than half of the world's population has brought about a change in circumstance, and perhaps in fortunes, from a prospect of world population explosion with assumed devastating consequences for all of humankind to the currently perceived end of world population growth on the horizon. As understood today, this 'end' to world population growth does not come through the involuntary increase in death rates due to famines and disasters as many ecologists predicted, but rather through the voluntary decline in birth rates under conditions of increasing life expectancy and improving material well-being. There are still many old and new challenges in continuing efforts to move towards globally sustainable development, but there is little doubt that the end of world population growth will make these efforts a little easier. It should be noted that the Asian fertility decline has contributed to improving not only these global prospects, but in the first instance, the conditions of livelihood and well-being among the Asian populations themselves....

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