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Despite decades of declining birth rates and years of hand-wringing over a pandemic baby bust, there are now more than 2 billion alpha children worldwide — more than quarter of the population of the planet — and some 6 million in California alone.

Instead, the opposite happened: a baby bust.

“The working-age population has flatlined and will soon begin falling,” said Mr. Carney, the author of an upcoming book on the “baby bust” and parenting.

Instead the opposite happened: a baby bust.

U.S. births ticked up about 51,000 between 2020 and 2021; as The Post’s Catherine Rampell has reported, pandemic-related government benefits and work-from-home opportunities helped confound expectations that the sharp recession would cause a baby bust.