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Thread: Population, Societies, and the Age Pyramid

  1. #1

    Default Population, Societies, and the Age Pyramid

    Demographics. Birth Dearth vs Overpopulation. This article left out the other half of the equation---third world countries with too many people to feed---but it still had some good facts.

    The other missing mention was emigration and mobility between nations / continents, but it's too important to leave out. Poor people can a) stay home and work like a dog to get ahead, b) grab educational opportunities to get ahead (often not at home), c) move where both education and jobs are available.

    Elderly are pretty much stuck aging at home (unless they're wealthy), so their pension, safety net and COL matter. Young people are more mobile, but if you're poor it's hard to afford a big move. Plus, all nations have immigration policies to consider.

    Seems to me the US (like Japan) will need millions of elder-care and health workers, they're just in the wrong place and could be "imported". Some would say that leads to exploitation of desperate low-wage workers (think Haitians, Guatemalans, Mexicans).

    We also have a thread about international aid....would it be wiser to move people out of some hopeless situations instead of sending their governments money? What would that look like in developed countries that don't have much menial or manual work left to be done?


    Shrinking Societies: The Other Population Crisis

    The earth's population is growing at an alarming rate, but in some countries the lack of growth is the biggest problem

    By Venessa Wong


    A Japanese woman's role in society is to give birth, and "all we can do is ask them to do their best per head," said Hakuo Yanagisawa, Japan's former health minister. His remark, as reported by Bloomberg in 2007, drew criticism for being sexist, but it touches on one of Japan's most pressing issues: its rapidly aging and shrinking population.

    Japan is expected to see its population contract by one-fourth to 95.2 million by 2050, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington-based research group, making it the fastest-shrinking country in the world.Former Eastern Bloc nations Ukraine and Georgia came in second and third, respectively, in a ranking of more than 200 countries by Businessweek.com based on the Population Reference Bureau's 2010 World Population Data Sheet.

    These countries defy the global trend—but that doesn't mean they'll be spared problems of their own. The world population is expected to expand by 37 percent to 9.5 billion in 2050, according to the report, but growth will not be evenly distributed. Developing countries will grow the most, with the population in Africa expected to double.

    Meanwhile, other regions will shrink as the boomer generation ages, people have fewer children, and workers leave for opportunities abroad. The most widespread decline is projected in Eastern Europe, where birthrates have declined since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The number of people in every country in the region, except the Czech Republic, is forecast to contract. By 2050 the region will have lost 13.6 percent of its population, according to data from the Population Reference Bureau.

    "Europe, Korea, and Japan have gone into panic mode," says Carl Haub, a senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau. A declining population impacts a country's economic growth, labor market, pensions, taxation, health care, and housing, according to the U.N. Globally by 2050, the number of older persons in the world will exceed the number of young for the first time in history, according to the U.N. The imbalance will create havoc in the pension systems and make it difficult to support retired and elderly persons, Haub says.

    Despite these economic and social consequences, there have been no easy long-term solutions for countries trying to reverse this trend. "Demographic changes are pretty glacial," says Haub.

    INCENTIVIZING GROWTH
    That does not mean governments are not trying. Many countries are on a mission to raise the number of births. Although migration patterns affect many countries—such as Lithuania, where the number of people leaving the country is several times the number entering it—they change quickly and can be difficult to project.

    Japan's fertility rate fell from 1.57 children per woman in 1989 to 1.26 in 2005, according to Haub. It has rebounded to 1.4, but remains below the rate needed to replace the population: 2.

    To encourage people to have more children, the government started implementing a series of programs called "Angel Plans" in 1994, says Toshiko Kaneda, senior research associate at the Population Reference Bureau. The plan offers counseling to couples, increases child-care services, and provides a monthly stipend of 26,000 yen (approximately $303) per child to ease the burden of raising a family.

    In Germany, where the fertility rate is 1.3, the government pledged to increase the number of nursery schools and introduced an allowance that pays 67 percent of a parent's income for the first year after a child is born if he or she stays home.

    Even in Iran, where the fertility rate is 1.8, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently introduced a policy that pays families for every child born and deposits money into the child's bank account until he or she is 18.

    Such policies only have moderate success, says Dimiter Philipov, a research group leader at the Vienna Institute of Demography in the Austrian Academy of Sciences. As subsidies mainly cause people to have children earlier, the number of births typically increases in the first few years after a policy is passed. The allowances are much lower than the amount needed to raise a child, but "this is a success because it brings in more babies and makes population changes smoother," he says.

    Also, while declining fertility was once attributed to the falling marriage rate, today the deteriorating job environment also affects people's decisions to have children, according to NLI Research Institute in Japan. Thus, in developed countries, rather than offer financial incentives, Philipov says, it is more effective to relieve pressure on parents through child-care services and ensuring job security for mothers. "Some would say no one has done it better than France," where there is a broad menu of services for women and parents, says Haub.

    IDEAL FERTILITY RATE
    Some argue the need to boost the fertility rate might not be so urgent. Tomáš Sobotka, a research scientist at the Vienna Institute of Demography, wrote in February in a column for The Guardian in the U.K. that demographers have been envisioning the demise of Europe since birthrates in the region began declining in the late 19th century, but "it is not population size but affluence and technology that make some countries more powerful than others."

    Philipov says a debate has emerged about the ideal fertility rate. Advances in science and technology that boost productivity might compensate for a fertility rate below the replacement level, such as 1.7 to 1.8, he says.

    Still, a fertility rate of 1.4 or 1.5, as seen in many countries, is "too low," Philipov says. At that level, the number of entries into the labor force becomes too narrow, making it difficult to support pensioners and children.

    ELDER CARE
    As fewer children are born, the fastest-growing age group in the world is people age 80 and older, according to the U.N. In 2000, there were about 4 people over age 85 for every 100 people ages 50 to 64; by 2050, it will rise to 11.

    The situation is more dire in places such as Japan, where the Population Reference Bureau predicts there will only be one working-age person for every person over age 65 in 2050. Already, there are long waiting lists at nursing homes in Japan's cities. To meet demand, the government has been recruiting, testing, and training nurses from Indonesia and the Philippines.

    Also, new technologies are being introduced in Japan to serve the elderly, although they are no substitute for people. For example, companies have reportedly been designing robot caretakers, devices for remote medical care, and cars that monitor brain activity to assist older drivers.

    Over the next 40 years, the age pyramid will be upside down and technological advancements will only provide limited relief. While demographic trends are difficult to change, Haub says, "something will have to happen."
    Discuss

    http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyl...812_825983.htm

  2. #2
    Or instead of trying to raise the birthrate and increase the amount of people on the planet vying for limited resources in an attempt to temporarily solve this issue, we can just suck it up and take the perceived problem until its gone. Before explaining how I'm being callous consider the other side of the argument; that is we younger generations should take on the costs of birthing more people than we currently are, or would plan to, simply so that they, our future children, can serve the older generations in their twilight years.
    . . .

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    Or instead of trying to raise the birthrate and increase the amount of people on the planet vying for limited resources in an attempt to temporarily solve this issue, we can just suck it up and take the perceived problem until its gone. Before explaining how I'm being callous consider the other side of the argument; that is we younger generations should take on the costs of birthing more people than we currently are, or would plan to, simply so that they, our future children, can serve the older generations in their twilight years.
    That's not callous.

    However, it IS the youth to consider here, or rather---how they're impacted by either higher taxes (to continue the retirement schemes and health care costs the Baby Boomers have) or how they can have careers that don't necessarily revolve around the largest demographic (old people).

    What do you mean by "suck it up"?

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    What do you mean by "suck it up"?
    The imbalance will create havoc in the pension systems and make it difficult to support retired and elderly persons, Haub says.
    We deal with the difficulty. Thats what I meant by "sucking it up".
    . . .

  5. #5
    I wasn't sure what you meant about WHO has to suck it up and just deal...
    instead of trying to raise the birthrate
    .... Young generations should pay high taxes until the Baby Boomers are dead, then recalibrate? Forego having your own children because it's too expensive (while paying for the old people)?



    Besides, you'll live longer than your parents. Baby Boomers make it tough in numbers, it was a huge birth spike after all, but eventually everyone will live longer.

  6. #6
    I'm all for healthy birthrates, but from an environmental standpoint there are some benefits to this trend. I hadn't heard of this particular imbalance before so I find this fascinating.

    But the problem of pensions is entirely self-imposed. Trying to cope with an obviously insurmountable problem is silly. Those who have been promised pensions will have to deal with less. We'll all stretch to make things work, but we can't bankrupt and kill ourselves so that Milwaukee teachers can have free viagra for life.

  7. #7
    Or, we can just focus on the unspoken problem of skyrocketing fertility rates in developing countries and throw oodles of money into fixing that. The fewer masses of poor in the future there are, the better everyone will be in terms of cultural, economic, and military security.
    Last edited by agamemnus; 08-13-2010 at 08:02 AM.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by agamemnus View Post
    Or, we can just focus on the unspoken problem of skyrocketing fertility rates in developing countries and throw oodles money into fixing that. The fewer masses of poor in the future there are, the better everyone will be in terms of cultural, economic, and military security.
    Throw oodles of money into fixing.....what, exactly? All those poor brown people you post about having too many babies? What would you do? Reproductive education, birth control, sterilization, subsidized emigration, what?

    Is it the mere mass of people you object to, or that developing countries have more poor and uneducated people? If it's just that they're poor, then would raising their earning income make them more palatable?

  9. #9
    Reproductive education, birth control, sterilization, subsidized emigration
    Sterilization is inhumane. Subsidized immigration is unethical. So, the other two. :P


    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Is it the mere mass of people you object to, or that developing countries have more poor and uneducated people? If it's just that they're poor, then would raising their earning income make them more palatable?
    No problem with a mass of people, but it's just economic truth that there's a capital growth rate (wealth), and a population growth rate. You can't force the capital growth rate to be the same as the population growth rate... you need money! The fewer babies are born, the more money the country has per capita, and the more well-off its citizens will be. This has always been the case.

    Edit: There is simply no problem with a lower or negative growth rate in and of itself. If the GDP per capita is also shrinking, then the growth rate should be lower still. If instead the old/retired/not-working are considered to be getting too many benefits versus the young/working, the benefits should simply be smaller.

    A population boom in and of itself has never brought economic prosperity.. how could it? It was true in the Roman Empire when the millions of poor living in Rome were fed by public handouts delivered by the yearly pilfering of Egypt, and it's true now!

  10. #10
    The fewer babies are born, the more money the country has per capita, and the more well-off its citizens will be. This has always been the case.
    Shall we ask Italy about that?

    Also, modern population booms always had other variables like war or industrial innovation that helped spur economies. This time around it's not necessarily true.

    I'm not a big fan of just looking at GDP. The more efficient we become and productivity rises could just reflect corporate profits, or money making money. It's not reflective of national health, or that the wealth "trickles down".

    We've got several millions of people who can't find a job, anywhere. Six applicants for every opening. Even well educated professionals. We might all agree to cut benefits to retirees, but they're a strong voting bloc who fight that.

    Besides, let's take a walk down that road. What would it look like in reality, if we cut retiree benefits right now? It's not like we have a NHS for their health/illness care. This is the GOP death panel scare tactic, innit? Don't change medicare or SS, but don't tax anyone to actually pay for it either?

    yay, stalemate.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    I wasn't sure what you meant about WHO has to suck it up and just deal...
    The generations that are going to have it the hardest.

    ...Young generations should pay high taxes until the Baby Boomers are dead, then recalibrate? Forego having your own children because it's too expensive (while paying for the old people)?
    I never said, nor advocated this.

    Besides, you'll live longer than your parents. Baby Boomers make it tough in numbers, it was a huge birth spike after all, but eventually everyone will live longer.
    And hopefully we'll adjust for this, but the current problem is due to the fact that more recent generations are having less children. This should, hopefully, eventually stabilize, within a few generations, and the issue will minimize.
    . . .

  12. #12
    From the perspective of a developed country, it's definitely a good thing to keep the fertility rate up - both for funding aging populations, but also to keep up economic growth and consumer spending - as more and more people retire, you have effectively fewer productive workers and fewer high consumption consumers (older people tend to spend less in most categories). Obviously, this can be dealt with through more than just fertility - immigration is a great way to deal with demographic imbalances, and a few destination countries definitely benefit from this phenomenon. Another solution is to redefine old - if people work for longer, then they are still adding to wealth rather than taking away from it (incidentally also the easiest way to make Social Security solvent).

    On a world population perspective, I wouldn't worry too much - if current trends continue, the world population should level off in another 40 or 50 years. Fertility is dropping much faster in the developing world as they industrialize than happened in the developed world back when we were industrializing. Large parts of the Arab world, for example, already have dangerously low fertility rates, and many of the other big, populous nations out there (e.g. India) are very quickly reducing their birthrates.

    I think the real challenge the world will face in a few decades is how to effectively deal with a stable or shrinking population. How quickly should it shrink? The 1.8 number given in the article is a nice idea, but is it accurate? How can it be maintained? What about regional imbalances - some countries rapidly shrinking in population while others continue to grow at a moderate rate? How will we cope with migration and competition for workers? On an individual country basis there are a lot of solutions to these problems, but when we're talking about the entire world, it's a little dicier.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by agamemnus View Post
    Or, we can just focus on the unspoken problem of skyrocketing fertility rates in developing countries and throw oodles of money into fixing that. The fewer masses of poor in the future there are, the better everyone will be in terms of cultural, economic, and military security.
    What skyrocketing fertility rates? That implies birth-rate is on the rise for some significant population group. They're not. They may be incredibly high in places, sure, but they're still falling.
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy View Post
    What skyrocketing fertility rates? That implies birth-rate is on the rise for some significant population group. They're not. They may be incredibly high in places, sure, but they're still falling.
    Ok, fine. Perhaps so. Death rates are certainly falling. They are still incredibly high, and a population growth rate falling from 10% yearly to 9.5% yearly still means the population is dramatically increasing; the gap between, say, 9.5% of developing countries and, say, -0.5% of developed countries is what I'm talking about.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by agamemnus View Post
    Ok, fine. Perhaps so. Death rates are certainly falling. They are still incredibly high, and a population growth rate falling from 10% yearly to 9.5% yearly still means the population is dramatically increasing; the gap between, say, 9.5% of developing countries and, say, -0.5% of developed countries is what I'm talking about.
    Highest growth rate right now is what, Burundi? At about 4%, compared to an OECD average of .7%, right? And a global average of about 1.15%. Assuming mid-variant for the comparison.
    Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by LittleFuzzy View Post
    Highest growth rate right now is what, Burundi? At about 4%, compared to an OECD average of .7%, right? And a global average of about 1.15%. Assuming mid-variant for the comparison.
    4% is high. That's a doubling every 18 years.. imagine the US doubling to 600M+ in 18 years. Anyway, it doesn't matter if they have the economic growth rate which exceeds the population growth rate (thus making them less poor over time) But just looking at Wikipedia, I see the currency inflation is 12% (ie: useless currency) and population below Burundi's poverty line is 68%. Just a bigger mess later on if the developed world ignores it.

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