Across a growing number of countries, something that was once considered unusual has become a regular reality: more people are dying each year than being born.
This doesn’t usually happen because death rates suddenly explode; instead, it develops slowly as families have fewer children, young adults delay parenthood, large numbers move abroad, and older generations become a greater share of the population.
The countries experiencing this shift are remarkably different. Some are wealthy European states with long life expectancies; others are former communist nations shaped by decades of emigration. Interestingly, every African nation has a birth rate exceeding its death rate. In Ethiopia, for example, there are more than five times as many births every year as there are deaths.
But which countries have a shrinking population due to more deaths than births? Click on to find out.