ABSTRACT
Because no population in history has yet experienced such an alteration of its demographic structure, discussion of the consequences of the demographic course of events posited in the current projections for low-birthrate populations is necessarily speculative. There is, however, one fear that the prospect of this change has given rise to about which there can be no question: the European share of total world numbers will inevitably decline. The process is already under way-less a result of low European fertility, however, than of the continuation, elsewhere, of much higher fertility and the higher growth rates that emanate from it. Low European fertility only hastens this process; it does not account for it.
