¶ Demography -- The Shrinking Population and the Double Scissors
¶ The Most Robust Finding in the Social Sciences
While machines are getting smarter, humans are becoming fewer. Demographics shows it with the relentlessness of a mathematical equation: as prosperity rises, the birth rate falls. Everywhere. Without exception. [1]
| Country | Fertility rate (2023/24) |
|---|---|
| Nigeria | 5.10 |
| India | 2.00 |
| France | 1.68 |
| USA | 1.62 |
| Switzerland | 1.39 |
| Germany | 1.35 |
| Japan | 1.20 |
| China | 1.00 |
| South Korea | 0.72 |
To keep the population stable, every country needs a rate of 2.1. Not a single industrialised country reaches this figure. Not one. [1]
Seoul alone stands at 0.64 -- the lowest value ever recorded in a major city. China, which officially counts 1.4 billion inhabitants, has been shrinking since 2022, by millions every year.
¶ Switzerland: Growth Through Migration, Not Through Births
The FSO published its ninth series of population scenarios in April 2025. [2]
| Scenario | Population 2055 | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| High scenario | 11.7 million | Growth |
| Reference scenario | 10.5 million | Slowing growth |
| Low scenario | 9.3 million | Shrinking from 2041 |
This sounds like growth. But this growth is driven almost exclusively by migration. Soon, more people will die in Switzerland each year than are born. In the low scenario, the population reaches its peak around 2043 and begins to shrink thereafter.
In both scenarios, society ages dramatically: the number of over-64-year-olds will double, while the working-age population stagnates or shrinks. [2]
¶ Peak Child -- The Peak Has Passed
Hans Rosling coined the term "Peak Child". The maximum number of children on Earth has already been reached. The UN estimates that the peak of under-five-year-olds was passed in 2017. [3]
The world population is still growing because those already born are living longer. But the base is shrinking. At some point in the second half of this century, the world population will begin to decline.
¶ The Double Scissors
This is where demographics meets the AI revolution -- and the combination is explosive.
Scissors 1: Fewer contributors, more pensioners. The baby boomers are retiring. The share of 20- to 64-year-olds falls from 65 per cent (2024) to 55 per cent (2050). [2] Fewer contributors are funding more pensioners.
Scissors 2: AI erodes the remaining contribution base. At the same time, AI displaces up to 2 million positions. The remaining workers -- already fewer due to demographics -- are additionally losing jobs to algorithms.
Two scissors opening simultaneously. The result: OASI, built on the principle "the young pay for the old", is losing its base from both sides.
¶ OASI: A Model From Another World
OASI was created in 1948 for a world in which people worked for forty years and then drew a pension for fifteen. This model presupposes that each generation produces more contributors than the previous one -- or at least the same number. [4]
Neither is any longer the case:
- Switzerland's fertility rate stands at 1.39
- The baby boomers are retiring
- AI is replacing precisely those positions whose wage contributions fund OASI
The 2024 OASI reform treated a symptom, not the cause. The real time bomb is the decoupling of productivity from paid employment.
¶ AI as a Demographic Accelerator
In developing countries, AI will accelerate the demographic transition. Education, career opportunities for women, economic participation -- all of these lower the birth rate. AI makes these processes accessible without the decades that the West required for them. [5]
The so-called "Peak Human" -- the moment when the world population reaches its peak -- will occur between 2060 and 2080, possibly earlier than UN projections suggest.
¶ What This Means for Switzerland
A shrinking humanity produces less -- and needs less. The classical growth paradigm of economics collapses. Pension systems built on growing generations must be redesigned.
The solution cannot be immigration alone -- because the countries of origin are also shrinking. The solution must shift the funding base from paid employment to value creation: not the wage is taxed, but productivity -- regardless of whether a human or a machine generates it.
¶ Sources
[1] United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs: World Population Prospects 2024. Revision. Fertility data worldwide.
[3] Rosling, Hans; Rosling, Ola; Roennlund, Anna Rosling: Factfulness. Sceptre, 2018. Concept of "Peak Child".