2.1: The Population Replacement Rate Number That Fixes Nothing

A number has come to dominate conversations about national survival: 2.1. This is the total fertility rate required to maintain a stable population in developed nations, the threshold demographers call the replacement rate. Below it, demographers warn, societies face inevitable decline, irreversible aging, and fiscal collapse. Governments have structured immigration policy and long-term planning around this single figure as though it were the pulse of civilization itself. The replacement rate is primarily a demographic and actuarial metric, designed to answer one question: Will there be enough workers to sustain pension systems, healthcare costs, and tax revenues as a population ages?...