Comment by jcfrei

I have a different, albeit probably more cynical take on birth rates. As soon as machines reach feature parity with humans population size will turn into a liability and stop being an asset. And once again the west is ahead of the curve, with low population size and birth rates below 2.1. Once all physical labor is done by machines comparative advantages that have allowed developing countries to catch up will stop working. Instead comparative advantages will shift to countries with cheap resources and most importantly lots of robots and highly integrated industries. Like most technological developments they will ultimately benefit everyone in absolute terms - but will relatively speaking make disparities worse: Ie. the low population, high resources countries (ie. the North) will get even richer, the population rich south will stay poor in comparison.