What does a slowdown in population growth mean for investors?

We must plan for the future accordingly

“Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can’t find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks.”

This was an excerpt from the Long Slide Looms for World Population with Sweeping Ramifications which was published in The New York Times on 23 May 2021.  It takes a fertility rate of 2.1 to replace the existing population. Here is a brief list of fertility rates in selected countries: US, 1.7; China, 1.7; UK, 1.6; Germany, 1.5, Japan, 1.4; Italy, 1.3; Spain 1.2; South Korea, 0.9. The countries in this narrow list constitute half the global economy and 80% of the world equity market. The consequences are not immediate. Even as fertility rates fall below 2.1, total populations can...