Our friends who like to butt heads over population might be interested to know that the global birth rate has fallen to its lowest point. The average woman in a developing country now gives birth 3.9 times over the course of her lifetime, compared with 5.9 in the 1970s, according to the U.N.
That’s not down to the replacement level of 2.1, of course, but consider it in conjunction with the far-below-replacement levels in some (over)developed countries like Spain (1.15), Italy (1.19), a handful of other European nations, and Japan, and it marks progress.
Still, in total we’re at 6,416,395,969 and counting …
