Demographics Now and Then

🇬🇹👶Guatemala potentially going significantly below replacement in 2024 is an incredible piece of news. Guatemala is poor, heavily indigenous (important as the Mayan community has traditionally been pro children),& has high emigration. Demographic disaster if emigration not curbed.

China is aging incredibly rapidly. This is mainly due to disastrous past demographic policy combined with the wholesale adoption of consumerism and materialism. By 2050 they have a median age far higher than even the U.S. (the individualist, consumerist, materialist capital of the world).

Also think things will be a bit worse for the U.S. and UK in terms of aging than the table suggests. But it does illustrate the power of demographics (particularly bad demographics) well.

This graphic shows the rapid aging of countries around the world and does an excellent job illustrating where we will be in 2050. Very few young populations will remain. India, Pakistan & Indonesia will be well into their demographic dividend. China+East Asia, as well as all of Europe+Canada aged.

The Caribbean is underreported but is entering a demographic doom loop. Things will be far worse than UN projections. Populations will peak earlier & lower (well before 2050). Biggest countries (Cuba, Jamaica, the DR) all far below replacement TFR with huge emigration levels.

If high emigration and very low TFR trends continue (Jamaica, Cuba are on sub 1.4 & some nations in the region are even lower) we can expect the population of the Caribbean to fall by almost half by 2100 to ~25M people.

🇸🇪👶If births from January to August are any guide (down ~1.6%)Swedish births will fall below 100,000 this year for the first time in more than two decades. TFR falling across all groups including immigrants. National TFR to stay below 1.45 (for comparison it was 1.85 in 2016).

TFR for ethnic Swedes could hit as low as sub 1.40 this year. Ethnic Swedish births will also make up less than 70% of births in 2024. More than two thirds of Swedish population growth now driven by immigration. Sweden will look profoundly different come 2050.

The ethnic Dutch in the Netherlands have a worse looking population pyramid (top pyramid) than Thailand. Very very top heavy. Huge population aged 51-75. Much much smaller population aged 0-24. Compare it to the population pyramid of the entire population of the Netherlands below.

While the UN estimates are roughly correct that the population of South America will top out at ~470 million by 2050, the drop after that point will be much more dramatic. Based on current plummeting TFR trends we’re seeing from Colombia to Chile it’s likely the total pop will be well below 325M by 2100.

Currently in the United States around 2.6 million baby boomers die annually. This number will rise to 4 million annually by 2037. That generations passing will completely change the political, social, and religious landscape. One cannot underestimate the scale of this change.

🇨🇳👶 Aggressive pronatalism is now Chinese policy & its enforcement is the purview of government family planning associations, the same bodies that once enforced the one-child policy. Now, however, they are working to promote the official “new fertility culture”.

The resources devoted to this effort have truly been significant. For example, in Miyun, a district of Beijing with ~500,000 residents, local family planning officials have set up a 500 person propaganda team to promote pro natalism & the three child ideal.

Now to be sure this Chinese pro natalist interventionism is far less than that during the one child policy & much of it consists of spreading the governments pronatalist message & informing women of many free pregnancy & child care resources now offered by the state.

However, I have many doubts as to the effectiveness of such an approach. Will it hurt? Unlikely. Will people start having 2-3 kids now that the government constantly messages that this is their social duty & provides lots of help to pregnant women+mothers? Almost certainly not.

https://t.co/gzYCBP7AWz

The TFR of Hanoi in Vietnam (second largest city ~8.5M & Capital of the country) is still above replacement (~2.11 currently). That of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon & largest city ~9.5M) is much much lower at ~1.5. Hanoi is picture at top and HCMC/Saigon bottom.

Basically all of the other low fertility areas of Vietnam are in former Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) parts of the country like Bạc Liêu, Bình Dương, Bến Tre, Tây Ninh etc. All currently have TFRs below that of the United States (so sub 1.63). Source: Stats Office of VN.

TFR for US Non Hispanic Whites (NHWs) stabilizing around 1.53. There is huge divergence within NHWs based on political affiliation. NHW conservatives likely ~1.7/8 while NHW liberals likely ~1.2/3.

🇹🇭👶Thailand has now reported births for the first three quarters of 2024. Births are down ~11%. It’s basically a given Thailand will have sub 1.0 TFR now. The country is so large (66M people) that the demographic crisis will impact all its neighbors. https://stat.bora.dopa.go.th/stat/statnew/statMONTH/statmonth/#/mainpage

In the United States the cumulative decline in births among women under age 35 is equivalent to 550 fewer lifetime births per 1,000 women,whereas the increase among women ages 35 & up is equivalent to 50 additional lifetime births per 1,000 women. That’s the crisis we face today.

Due to its rapidly aging population and low fertility rate the European Union’s Economy has a good chance of being the same size in 2050 as it is today. Demographic decline has enormous consequences.

https://t.co/XBw6JgQZVY

🇮🇹👶Italy sees significant June decline in births. # of births during the 1st half of 2024 is down 1.44% compared to the 1st half of 2023. For comparison births in the first 5 months of 2024 were only down 0.7%. TFR on track to = all time low of 1995 (1.19).

Yep, TFR in Utah now lower than Non Hispanic White TFR in North Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, & Mississippi. End of Mormon magic. No US State with a population 3M+ has NHW TFR above 1.75. California’s NHW TFR is lower than that of Germany. Massachusetts’ is lower than that of Italy…

U.S. NHW TFR is becoming rapidly European (& reaching East Asian levels amongst liberal NHWs) in some places. The U.S., Australia, UK used to be demographic outliers in that regard a decade plus ago. No longer. Only solution is to make motherhood prestigious. This will help make three and four child families sought after.

🇲🇽👶Mexico (with a fertility rate of~1.5) is now well below Brazilian TFR. For a country with more than 100M people (& the country with the second largest population in Latin America) the implications of this fertility collapse are huge. Births have plummeted far below 1.9M a year. In addition, emigration will continue to hollow out the country.