Should international schools be worried by falling global birth rates?

July of this year was a month marred by heatwaves and unprecedented wildfires across Europe - but it also had another ominous portent. The start of July marked “death day”, according to think tank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).

It has crunched the numbers, it says, and, as of 1 July 2026, based on population projections from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the number of babies born in England and Wales every year will now be outpaced by deaths - a trend set to “extend well into the 2030s”.

Britain is entering “a new demographic era”, it concludes.

England and Wales are not alone in this. “Declining fertility rates are nigh on a global trend,” says Willem Adema, a senior economist in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) social policy division, who has led the body’s family policy work since it started around 2000.

“Persistently low birth rates are a big issue in Japan and Korea but also in Central European countries like Poland and Hungary. China is another one, India, too,” he says.

Many of the long-term implications are unclear. Some, like the CSJ, paint a stark picture of “seismic demographic shifts” that will wreak havoc with public finances.

The impact of falling birth rates on schools

Adema shies away from this view, describing it as “scaremongering”. He notes that migration can change a nation’s population, while governments can implement policies to encourage people to have children by making family life more affordable and work-life balance achievable.

Singapore is a case in point - last month the city state announced a package of support for children from birth to the age of 17 worth £40,000 in a bid to encourage its citizens to embrace parenthood.

Yet such measures take time to have an impact - if, indeed, they work at all - and before then it seems clear that education systems worldwide will be the first to face the consequences of declining birth rates.

In England, July also brought new official projections showing that pupil numbers are expected to fall further and faster than previously thought: in 2026 there were 7.81 million pupils in state schools; by 2031 that figure is now projected to decrease by 9.3 per cent to 7.08 million.

The view is that this will lead to school closures, possible job losses and reduced school access for parents in more remote areas.

Across the pond in the USA, a headline in The Washington Post on 20 July read: “Shrinking student populations cause spike in public school closures across US”. This article revealed that from 2019 to 2031, US schools are projected to lose nearly 4 million students.

Meanwhile, in China reports of nursery closures abound. One news report, published in July, states that nearly 30,000 kindergartens and primary schools closed in 2025 alone.

It describes this as “the starkest sign yet that a prolonged demographic slump is fundamentally upending the country’s vast education system”.

Why host country fertility data matters

Fertility numbers make it clear why this is happening: OECD data shows, for example, that in China the birth rate has dropped from 6.09 in 1970 to 1 in 2023. The average rate required to ensure that births match deaths is 2.1.

Meanwhile, in India the birth rate has dropped from 5.62 in 1970 to 1.98 in 2023. The US rate has declined from 2.48 to 1.62. These are not the lowest current rates, though, with rates in Italy at 1.2, Poland at 1.16 and South Korea at 0.72 at the bottom of the table.

There are big questions for these countries to wrestle with, including those about their state education systems. But there is another part of the schools sector that could also face huge impacts: international schools.

For the past decade or so, international schools have experienced huge growth, thanks in large part to local populations clamouring for international education.

This means that while population trends were “largely irrelevant” to international schools in the past because these schools were serving expats, now they are key, according to ISC Research’s global head of school development, Sami Yosef.

Host-country nationals now form “the substantial majority” of pupils in international schools, says Yosef, citing Thailand, Egypt and Vietnam as examples. This makes projections of pupil numbers a lot more important.

“When most of the student body is local, host-country fertility becomes the demand fundamental,” he says.

Rob Millar, principal of Shrewsbury International School Bangkok, in Thailand, is one head who is very much looking at this trend.

When the school was founded in 2003, he says, children under the age of 14 made up a quarter of the Thai population.

That figure has now fallen to “somewhere around 14 per cent”, and is expected to dip further. And this is happening at the same time as “an explosion” in the number of British-brand private schools setting up schools in Bangkok.

That list includes the likes of St Paul’s Girls’ School, Dulwich College, Wycombe Abbey and Magdalen College School Oxford. Meanwhile, North London Collegiate School and Glenalmond College are opening up the coast in Phuket.

Getting pupils in early

This rapid growth of the sector coupled with birth rate trends has got Millar “a little bit worried” and wondering what the market for international schools is going to look like in 20 years’ time.

One clear response is that early years provision is becoming far more important in school operations in terms of securing enrolments, because “once families have made a choice and their child settles in, psychologically, it’s a bit of a thing for a family to move a school”, says Millar.

This is echoed by Wayne Johnson, CEO of Cambridge International School in Bratislava, Slovakia, where the fertility rate is now 1.65. The school has gradually acquired feeder kindergartens, and will soon have five in total.

“Everyone is fighting for the kindergarten market because they see that as a pipeline,” says Johnson.

Meanwhile, in Hong Kong, the English Schools Foundation (ESF) - the biggest provider of English medium international education there - recently outlined a plan to link kindergartens to primary schools and guarantee a primary place for any child completing the nursery phase.

ESF chief executive Belinda Greer says connecting the learner journey and making transition seamless is important to parents and makes schools more attractive in a competitive environment - at the same time “as being in the best interest of pupils”.

Of course, this approach still relies on having enough pupils coming through the door. There are already signs in China that this is set to become more challenging, says one international school principal there.

Their kindergarten used to have a waiting list, he says, but not now. Meanwhile, the school, which typically runs nine classes per year group, is also down a class in grade one next year and expects this trend to continue.

“Without question, primary school divisions will experience enrolment declines in the years ahead, and eventually middle school divisions,” says the principal, who wishes to remain anonymous.

If things get tough in China then the situation in South Korea - which has the world’s lowest fertility rate as per OECD data - might get even worse.

This is why Alison Derbyshire, head of Dulwich College Seoul - an all-through school catering for around 750 pupils in South Korea - says “paying very close attention” to population data and “planning strategically” is a must.

Schools will need to “be proactive and clear in communicating their identity and the quality of the programmes...if they wish to maintain sustainable numbers”, she adds.

Meanwhile, Nigel Venning, owner and chairman of British Education Korea (BEK), which runs five small city schools serving 550 pupils in Seoul and its suburbs, acknowledges that the “the declining birth rate is a major issue” for the country.

However, he believes that even with a small population, demand should remain high for international education.

“There is a growing realisation among middle- and upper-class families that the world has changed significantly and their children probably need something different in terms of their education. That increase in interest and awareness among Korean families is growing faster than the decline.”

Act now or react later?

Some schools are being proactive, though. For example, Johnson in Slovakia is exploring the idea of bussing in students from Vienna in neighbouring Austria (not an option that South Korea has with its neighbour).

His school’s fees of around 20,000 Euros are high by Slovakian standards but are low in comparison with international schools in Austria. “I think you’ve got to be proactive...you’ve got to think a bit differently,” adds Johnson.

Yosef at ISC says schools have other options that they could consider, too: extending sixth-form pathways “to lengthen pupil lifetime value”, enhancing or adding special educational needs and disabilities support, offering bilingual streams, or introducing other specialist pathways that further increase opportunities to entice parents.

Such actions may well be necessary, warns Neil Roskilly, who was chief executive of the Independent Schools Association for over a decade, who believes many UK private schools with overseas campuses could be in for a shock as population decline starts to impact enrolments.

“Most [schools] rarely look at population trends when carrying out due diligence,” he tells Tes.

Attention tends to be focused on “spending a budget on superficial outward stuff” but this may be a wasted cost in declining markets. “There’s little point in increasing marketing spend in doing what you have always done when the pool is drying up,” he says.

This doesn’t mean schools are doomed to fail, but it may mean tough decisions have to be taken to cut costs - and “that means staffing,” says Roskilly plainly.

He also suggests that schools may have to consider sharing back-office functions with others to make savings and maximising facilities use “to an all-year operation” to diversify income streams.

Go to the growth

Of course, one simple solution for UK schools looking to expand overseas that wish to avoid these issues altogether is to go where the growth is.

Nigeria, for example, is the most populous country in Africa with a fertility rate of 4.48 births per woman in 2023 - and international schools are starting to move into such markets in larger numbers.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Rugby School Nigeria and Charterhouse Lagos have opened in the country in recent years and Wellington is set to open there next year.

Writing in Tes last year, Chris Woolf, who at the time was senior international director at Wellington College, said the private school’s expansion into Nigeria had been triggered, in part, by population growth.

The population was “growing rapidly”, he wrote - by 4.8 million every year, according to the World Population Review.

Meanwhile, GEMS Education has focused growth in new areas such as East Africa, with a school opening planned for Zanzibar and nations like Malawi, Tanzania and Rwanda on its radar.

Yosef from ISC Research says this is no surprise: “Much of Sub-Saharan Africa remains demographically favourable and undersupplied.”

These are “the genuine growth frontiers”, he says, along with India and parts of South-East Asia.

Divine Vhovha, deputy head of curriculum at an international school in Uganda, has seen this first hand, saying the market is growing at “an exponential rate”, driven by “an appreciation of international curriculums” and investors keen on the sector.

Economics questions

Even with a growing population, though, there needs to be economic strength to drive enough parents into income brackets to pay for a private education, as Sean Davey, global business director of Reigate Grammar School International, outlines.

“The critical question we ask is not simply whether the population is growing, but whether there will be a sufficiently large, affluent and accessible pool of families who are willing to pay for premium international education.”

So while “demographics are very important”, he says, so, too, are affluence and socioeconomic indicators such as the affordability of premium fees.

Davey continues: “You can have a low fertility rate for a country but still allow us to establish a premium school in an area which has a concentration of wealth, immigration and demand.

“By contrast, there are many areas in South-East Asia with relatively high fertility rates but limited demand due to low household incomes. So the absolute number of future pupils in the specific catchment matters more than national fertility rates.”

Angelina Tee, CEO of Taylor’s Schools, which operates schools in South-East Asia, has a similar take: birth rate is just one factor to consider. “We would never make an investment decision based on fertility data alone,” she says.

“Every market has its own dynamics. Singapore, for example, has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates, yet demand for high-quality international education remains strong because of its role as a global business hub and the continuing movement of international talent.”

The question, Tee says, is not so much “Is the birth rate falling?” as “Is there sustainable demand for premium education over the long term?”

Ultimately, she says, “demographic trends deserve attention” but “they do not determine the success or failure of an international school”.

“In our sector, reputation, educational quality and the ability to deliver an exceptional student and parent experience are far stronger predictors of long-term success.”

More selective parents

Beatriz Blecher-Catto, chief marketing officer at Globeducate, which runs more than 65 international and bilingual schools in 11 countries, notes, too, that there may be benefits from population decline if parents then put more focus on fewer children.

“Countries such as Spain and Italy have experienced declining birth rates for many years, yet demand for quality private education has remained resilient,” she says.

Given this, she says, while tracking birth data is helpful, it is not the only data point that matters.

“Birth rates provide a useful long-term indicator of the potential school-age population, but they do not, on their own, determine the attractiveness of a market,” she adds.

Blecher-Catto acknowledges, though, that with fewer children, the pressure to entice parents will increase, and schools demonstrating “the attractiveness and value proposition” will be even more important.

Greer has a similar take, saying that international schools will have to keep quality “front and centre” - and Davey at Reigate agrees that families are likely to become “even more selective” about this in the future.

This means that while “established school brands should have a distinct advantage”, they will not be able to “rely on heritage or name recognition alone”, he says.

“Competition within the premium segment of British international education will become more intense, with the strongest schools distinguished not only by their brand but also by the quality of their provision, the strength of their outcomes and the depth of their local impact.”

Historical trends

Yosef at ISC agrees that while demographic shifts are only one part of the picture for the future of the sector, it seems clear that they will have a definite impact on how the sector grows.

He says, therefore, that schools need to “plan against actual birth cohorts in their catchment three to five years forward - rather than against aspirational market-size projections”.

History, however, should provide some reassurance to the sector, suggests Tristan Bunnell, an expert on international schools at the University of Bath, who notes that they have weathered other storms: from the financial shock in Asia in the late 1990s to the global financial crisis in 2008 and more recently the Covid pandemic.

Some areas like Bangkok and Shanghai “might have reached saturation point” for international schools but generally, he says, there is “a new ‘global middle class’ that seems intent on an alternative English medium of instruction education”.

Nevertheless, with the local population in decline in numerous key markets, it is clear schools and groups around the world may need to keep an eye on fertility data.