Summary: For decades, experts assumed that rising prosperity inevitably led to falling birth rates, fueling concerns about population collapse in wealthy societies. Prosperity, it was believed, inevitably drove birth rates down. And in many wealthy countries, such as South Korea and Italy, very low fertility rates persist. For many years, wealthier European countries tended to have lower birth rates than poorer ones. Still, it’s important to challenge the common assumption that prosperity inevitably leads to lower birth rates: Wealth does not always mean fewer children.