In a recent article, the New York Times once again sounded the alarm about a supposed crisis of underpopulation in the United States. Warning about the potential consequences of recent demographic developments, Lydia Polgreen writes:

Country after country in the wealthy world is facing a top-heavy future, with millions of retirees and far too few workers to keep their economies and societies afloat. In the not-so-distant future, many countries will have too few people to sustain their current standard of living.

But this conclusion is far too hasty. What falling fertility rates (combined with a lack of sufficient in-migration) will do over the long term is put downward pressure on the economic growth rate as a result of the declining growth of the number of workers in the economy. That is quite a different thing than lowering the average standard of living. We can reasonably expect increases in labor productivity to outpace the growth of the ratio of nonworkers to workers, obviating the concern that an avalanche of retirees will sink general living standards. And it is plausible that workers could even see their living standards increase — especially if labor increases its income share relative to capital.