The tipping point: what happens when deaths outnumber births?

In Japan, there are now companies that specialise in cleaning the apartments of elderly people who have died alone and gone undiscovered for weeks or months, while adult incontinence pads have outstripped nappy sales for more than a decade. In Italy, depopulating villages are selling homes for €1 to attract new residents and keep services running. In the UK, falling pupil numbers are already closing schools and classrooms in parts of London.These are not isolated curiosities, but signs of a broader shift taking place across much of the developed world. “In the EU in 2024, 21 of 27 countries had more deaths than births,” said Prof Sarah Harper, the director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. Across Asia and the Americas, too – from Japan and South Korea, to Cuba and Uruguay – many countries are seeing the same pattern.It reflects two long-running demographic changes: people are living longer, and the average number of children they are having – something demographers refer to as fertility – is falling.In the UK, the latest projections from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggest that deaths will outnumber births every year from 2026 onwards, driven by falling fertility and the large, postwar