ElQuintron It’s an interesting article/question, I wonder if the decline would be fast enough for use to notice, or slow enough for us to adapt.
Assuming it all just happened on “Day 1 - all babies stop happening”.
It would be apparent in waves - the first 5 years only OB/GYN’s, maternity wards, and daycares would notice - everyone else would continue as normal. The next 13-15 years would see schools faltering as entering class numbers dropped to 0 each year - first Kindergartens and early grade schools would be closing their doors and laying off the teachers - then entire elementary and primary schools would shutter and teachers would flood the job markets. The next thing that would start to suffer during this timeframe are all the industries that cater to children – kids clothes, toy companies, car seat manufacturers, infant formula makers, etc would all start to shutter and those people would start to flood the job market. Unemployment would be up up up…
Up until 18 years after “day 1” the rest of the world would continue along generally as normal - there would still be plenty of employees to fill jobs, probably too many, with all the people laid off from schools and youth-related industries. Next universities would start to falter - their incoming classes would only consist of mature students - teens would be gone. After 5 years the college and university systems will have essentially shuttered, and demand across all industries will be starting to falter - at that point, about 22-23 years after “Day 1” the population of the planet would be down about 30% - demand for raw materials and resources would be dwindling, meanwhile industry that supplies primarily adults and elderly markets would continue to do relatively well - as those “age groups” would have still been replenished by existing youth aging.
The world would be in a lot of turmoil seeing “the end is near for humanity” - the writing would now be on the wall if no “fix” had been found after 2 decades - people would be trying cloning, using various types of artificial “test tube baby” type things, perhaps even attempting to develop artificial wombs in which children could be grown. If all those have failed and there’s zero chance, this is about when society starts to really have problems - panic and anger will widely set in. Expect wars and tyranny to set in widespread as the strong start trying to horde for the short future ahead.
In decades 3 4 and 5 - from 22 to 50 or so years after “day 1” its a mess. Demand continues to falter and the number of people available to take care of the elderly and ill dwindle. Expect death and loss of population from the opposite end to start to predominate. Living to 88? Nahhh… 68 might be it… there’s no oncologists left to treat cancer… there’s no endocrinologists.. no urologists… no internal medicine experts… no surgeons… (not literally “no”, but so few as compared to the number of people aging that those supports disappear - 1 doctor per 100,000 people type deal… ) - entire segments of industry start to close down due to lack of people to work for them and waning demand.
By the time we enter decade 6, we’re now 51 years past “Day 1” and the population of the planet is severely dwindling. less than 20% of the workforce is left. Many elderly have failed and died off younger than normal. There’s no such thing as pensions or money for the elderly with almost no one left paying in. The workforce continues to shrink another 10% per year as people age out and die off.
65 or so years past “Day 1” the workforce no longer exists. Most people are either too old or too sick to work. Subsistence is the name of the game - the worlds population is down to a few hundred million - all of North America maybe has 2-3 million people left in scattered pockets. infrastructure will have failed with no one to keep it up - no more electricity grid, no more roads, no more new cars, no oil or gasoline. Those pockets of people who have managed to get into an “off grid” lifestyle will likely be the only ones left - able to grow their own food, distill or filter water for drinking, etc. Even roaming bands of marauders and militaries will have faltered due to age at this point. Soon when people die there will be no one left to bury them or eliminate their remains. Cholera and other disease will become rampant in any remaining cities. It’ll be a bleak last decade for the few remaining people who continue to age and become weak and ill with no help - medicines will be gone, doctors gone, you’ll be old and alone if you’re still here - one sprained ankle away from becoming vulture food.
