Fertility as economic early‑warning

Treat standardized fertility time series (births per woman) as a leading indicator for fiscal and labour stress — for example, flagging regions where sustained subreplacement fertility over a decade predicts growing pension burdens, shrinking school cohorts, or future migration pressure. Policymakers could build automated dashboards that combine this World Bank/UN series with labour and pension projections to trigger targeted interventions. — Making fertility metrics an explicit early‑warning tool would shift demographic data from academic background to actionable policy triggers for budgets, migration and workforce planning.