Welcome back. I’m Adeline Atlas, 11-time published author, and this is the Depopulation Series — Are We the Last Biological Humans?

Today’s video takes us into the realm of simulation—modeling a future that, while not inevitable, is now statistically plausible. If the current trends in fertility decline hold, what happens next? What does the world look like when the birth rate collapses below recovery levels? And most hauntingly—when is the last biological child born?

This isn’t speculative fiction. It’s math.

Let’s begin with the United Nations’ low-variant population projections. These are the official models that assume fertility rates will continue to decline across most of the world, dropping below the replacement rate of 2.1 and staying there. According to the UN, if global TFR falls to 1.4 and remains at that level, the world’s population would begin shrinking before 2100—and continue shrinking indefinitely.

But it gets more complicated. When a country’s TFR falls below 1.5, recovery becomes historically rare. Nations like Japan, South Korea, and Italy have spent decades trying to raise their birth rates—with little success. This phenomenon is called demographic inertia. Once low fertility becomes culturally normalized, it perpetuates itself. Fewer children means fewer future parents. And with each generation, the available population base shrinks.

Let’s do a basic demographic simulation. Assume a stable starting population of 100 million people, with a TFR of 1.4. That means, on average, each generation is producing 33% fewer children than the one before. Over time, this creates a cascading decline. Within just three generations, that population falls below 50 million. Within six generations, fewer than 20 million remain. By the tenth generation—approximately 250 years—less than 10% of the original population survives.

And here’s the chilling part: these aren’t just numbers. These are children who were never born. Families that never formed. Cultures that quietly ceased to exist.

Now scale that simulation globally. If we hold TFR at 1.4, the world population could fall from its current 8 billion to 5 billion by the year 2100. By 2200, it may dip below 3 billion. And the decline continues. Without some form of technological intervention, the global population could return to pre-industrial levels—under 1 billion—within 300 years.

And that’s assuming things don’t accelerate.

Let’s bring it closer to the present. In 2024, South Korea’s TFR hit 0.72—the lowest ever recorded in a major country. At that rate, each generation is shrinking by over 60%. In Seoul, some school districts have closed elementary campuses permanently. In rural Japan, entire villages are vanishing. By 2040, the number of 10-year-olds in Japan will be lower than it was during World War II. Not because of war. But because of silence.

China is now experiencing its own demographic cliff. After decades of enforcing the One-Child Policy, the CCP is now desperately trying to reverse course. Cash incentives, matchmaking campaigns, state-sponsored dating apps—all designed to boost birth rates. But the people aren’t responding. In 2022, China’s population shrank for the first time in 60 years. Births are down 10% year over year. And the younger generations are increasingly uninterested in parenthood.

Let’s now ask the core question: When is the last biological child born?

Of course, there’s no single year when all babies stop being born. But demographers can project “functional extinction”—the point at which natural reproduction falls so low that it can no longer sustain even minimal generational continuity.

Some analysts use the “last child born” model to calculate a symbolic milestone. Based on UN low-variant projections, if current trends hold and artificial reproduction remains a fringe practice, the last naturally conceived child could be born sometime between 2300 and 2400. That child will likely live in a world where human birth is rare, mechanized, or government-managed.

That’s the direction we’re heading.

But even that estimate assumes the natural reproductive system remains biologically viable. There’s a growing concern that environmental factors are degrading fertility so rapidly that reproduction may fail not due to social choices, but biological collapse. Sperm counts have dropped by over 50% in the last 50 years. PFAS, phthalates, and microplastics are now found in over 90% of human blood samples. Some researchers, including Dr. Shanna Swan, predict the median sperm count could reach zero by 2045. If she’s right, then the last natural child may be born far sooner than we think—maybe within the lifetime of someone watching this video.

This brings us to a chilling question: Could governments mandate pregnancy to stop the decline?

In theory, yes. And history shows us that they’ve already tried.

In 1980s Romania, dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu banned abortion and contraception to force a population boom. Women were monitored by “menstrual police.” Childless adults were taxed. The result was catastrophic: overrun orphanages, underground abortions, and widespread trauma. But it shows what governments will do when population collapse is seen as a national emergency.

Could we see this again in the future?

Some scenarios are already unfolding. In China, local governments have begun setting quotas for childbirth. In Hungary, tax exemptions are tied to family size. In Singapore, parental matchmaking is run by the state. These are soft mandates—but the line between incentive and coercion is always thin.

Now imagine a world where artificial wombs become mainstream. Reproduction is outsourced to machines. Embryos are selected, edited, and incubated in biopods. In this future, pregnancy is no longer personal—it’s policy. Governments could commission children as national assets. Selectively bred for intelligence, strength, or compliance.

In such a scenario, the question shifts from “Who will have children?” to “Who will be allowed to?”

We’re not there yet. But we are building the infrastructure.

CRISPR. IVF. Ectolife. Surrogacy platforms. AI parent-matching. Embryo freezing at scale.

The pieces are already on the board.

And as birth rates decline, the incentive to turn reproduction into a system, a supply chain, or a state program becomes overwhelming.

But what happens to the children born in such a world?

If most of the population stops reproducing, and a small elite continues through artificial means, those children will grow up in a different reality. They won’t experience extended families, sibling bonds, or ancestral continuity. Their identity may be synthetic. Their upbringing controlled. And their purpose defined by the systems that created them.

That is not a future of extinction.

That is a future of conversion.

From biological reproduction to technological fabrication.

From legacy to algorithm.

From family to infrastructure.

So let’s return to our initial question: when is the last child born?

The answer depends on what kind of child we’re talking about. If we mean the last biological child—conceived naturally, gestated by a human mother, born into a family built by love and effort—then yes, there is a countdown. And it has already started.

If we mean children as a concept—beings raised to inherit culture, language, and identity—those will persist. But they may not be born. They may be built.

In some ways, this transition is already visible. Human intimacy is being outsourced. Sex tech replaces physical touch. AI replaces emotional companionship. Parenting apps dictate feeding, sleep, and emotional cues. The essence of human reproduction is no longer sacred—it’s becoming optional.

The child of the future may not remember warmth, waiting, or wonder. They may remember data uploads, artificial memory, and supervised affection. And one day, they may ask where the rest of us went.

We were here. We just stopped making more.

In closing, this is not a message of doom—but a moment of reckoning. The demographic simulation shows us a path that is still unfolding. If we do nothing, the decline accelerates. If we intervene, we must ask: at what cost?

There’s still time to ask the real question.

Not just when the last child will be born.

But why we stopped creating them in the first place.