Today is the first day of the bleak northern winter. Let’s celebrate by considering a bleak forecast. Our smartest minds say that China is heading for disaster because the Chinese aren’t having enough children and, also, the Chinese refuse to convert to the Church of Open Borders (they wouldn’t have welcomed Rahmanullah Lakanwal as we did, for example). Here’s one from RAND:
Population well-being (structural security) implications include broad strain on government finances; increasing costs of social insurance programs, including pensions and health care; varied but generally negative economic effects; high youth unemployment and disengagement from competitive labor markets in a slowing economy; and mixed effects on innovation capacity.
(There will be “high youth unemployment” with a reduction in the supply of youths?)
The “decline in fertility” that is described will result in China’s median age going up from its current 40 maybe to Switzerland’s 44 or Taiwan’s 45 (they’re so old that all they can do is make 2nm semiconductors for NVIDIA and Intel) or, in a true nightmare scenario, to Japan’s 50. China could become a hellscape like Japan, in other words.
If low fertility and a high median age is something that a society should try to avoid that must mean that the world’s nicest countries are ones with high fertility and a low median age, right? The CIA list highlights some paradises:
- Afghanistan: median age 20
- Sudan: median age 19
- Mozambique: median age 17
- Niger: median age 15 (population growth rate of 3.66%, higher even than what the Palestinians have achieved while fueled by unlimited housing, food, health care, and education funded by US and EU taxpayers through UNRWA)
How can our smartest people predict that China will become bad through low fertility if the nations with the highest fertility aren’t great places to live? A simpler formulation of the above: Africa has a larger population than China and Africa’s population is growing robustly (more than 2 percent per year); if the fertility doomers are right why isn’t Africa a better place to live than China?
Folks also fret about potential gradual population decline in the U.S. In other words, we’ll be farther up the list of countries ranked by median age and, thus, farther away from the fertility champs cited above. Why would it be bad to have 300 million Americans instead of 343 (or maybe 370?) if the 300 million never get stuck in traffic, enjoy decluttered National Parks, and are surrounded by AI and robotics any time that something productive needs to be done?
You are, obviously, over simplifying things.
Low birth rate and high median ages are considered a concern for countries with good/wealthy economies. All of the countries you are seeing as good places to move to are poor with limited economies.
IMO, Dr. Greenspun knows everything that we would write here. He’s just amusing himself and us by pretending otherwise, and doesn’t want to write his posts sincerely, LOL!
No doubt.
(But these posts seem to be a criticism of something too.)
> You are, obviously, over simplifying things.
Well if Phil is, he ain’t the only one. I didn’t see a single differential equation in a scan of the RAND paper, maybe visual acuity is a factor in my old age. I would think you would need those to answer:
> There will be “high youth unemployment” with a reduction in the supply of youths?
Reminds me of a predator/prey situation, which they commoonly use DEs to model. I think if someone throws you a conclusion that doesn’t make sense and is contradictory, it is OK to question that conclusion. Those countries maybe aren’t desirable now, but with shifting demographics maybe that will change.
My own opinion (completely unbacked by math and qualitative) is that the world needs to massively downsize the human population, and take the hit. It would be better to have fewer happy people with ample resources than great masses squashed together in favelas combing the dumps.
We need immigrants to make sure there are enough lazy consumers to absorb the output of the hard working folks. Supply and demand!
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/2000954226118172826
There are many countries with low birth rates that have poor populations.
Also, USA in 1950 – 1970th had median age below 30 years, and it was envy of the civilized world.
#flying Dan Gryder solves Greg Biffle plane crash?
– lost engine shortly after takeoff
– tried VFR return to small airport (because wasn’t legal single pilot?)
– extended flaps, but single-engine checklist says (ambiguous?) no flaps for landing
– sunk with flaps + heavy + single-engine + gear down
https://youtu.be/FKiPUBFFgQM?t=725
The media has a field day panicking about low birth rates, but this makes zero sense to me. There are plenty of places around the world that are overpopulated already.
The main issue is unfunded liabilities for seniors. This was established before anyone considered that population might decline, and should be abolished.