数据上的逆转是核心。全球生育率在 1967 年约为每名妇女 5 名子女，到 1970 年代末降至 3 以下，约 2000 年为 2.7，而依据 UN，目前约为 2.2，仍在下降，且仅略高于 2.1 的更替水准门槛。在亚洲主要经济体中，生育率已明显低于更替水准。UN 现预测，世界人口将在 2080 年代中期之后开始下降，早于先前预期，这使政策辩论由人口过剩转向人口收缩。
这篇专栏并未声称 Ehrlich 对所有风险都判断错误：饥饿仍然存在，疫情确曾关闭边境，而 1973 年石油危机等资源冲击也强化了匮乏恐惧。但文章认为，他的核心预测在方向上错了，而且在政治上有害，因为它在生育率其实已开始下降之际，普及了强硬的人口控制思维。到了 2026 年，讽刺的是，各国政府正提供诱因以提高出生数，但历经约半个世纪形成的趋势，可能极难逆转。
Daniel Moss argues that Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book The Population Bomb badly misread the long-run demographic problem. Ehrlich warned that rapid population growth would trigger mass famine, plague, war, and extreme global controls over childbearing, yet many rich and middle-income economies now fear the reverse: too few births, shrinking labor forces, and rising old-age dependency. Singapore called its record-low fertility in 2025 an existential challenge, while China, South Korea, Japan, and parts of Europe are confronting similar pressures.
The numerical reversal is central. Global fertility was about 5 children per woman in 1967, fell to below 3 by the late 1970s, reached 2.7 around 2000, and is now about 2.2 according to the UN, still declining and only slightly above the replacement benchmark of 2.1. In key Asian economies, fertility is already well below replacement. The UN now projects that world population will start to decline after the mid-2080s, earlier than previously expected, shifting the policy debate from overpopulation to demographic contraction.
The column does not claim Ehrlich was wrong about every risk: hunger persists, pandemics did shut borders, and resource shocks such as the 1973 oil crisis reinforced scarcity fears. But it argues his central forecast was directionally wrong and politically harmful because it popularized harsh population-control thinking just as fertility was already falling. The irony in 2026 is that governments are offering incentives to raise births, yet trends built over roughly half a century may prove very hard to reverse.