Demographics Now and Then

While an aging Colombia will suck up young Venezuelan workers the same cannot he said for Mexico or Brazil. Mexico’s demand for cheap labor could literally take Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, & Nicaragua to the breaking point. Hollowed out & devoid of young people. Similarly for Brazil it’s neighbors are small (think Paraguay, Bolivia) & many form there prefer to emigrate to Argentina. Brazil may opt for Angolans and Mozambicans but I honestly doubt it in large numbers. These aging Latam giants must ultimately get to the conclusion that immigration is not the solution to demographic downturns. They will need to develop fast and use technology to help them adjust. https://x.com/birthgauge/status/1804234762527347171?s=46&t=4B1VZvcCmqy_LsZnd1cuig

Vietnam: good demographics, strong economic growth, overall smart people, stable leadership, sensible foreign policy. Completely understand those bullish about the country’s future. One of a very few countries that fit all those criteria. Despite most of its neighbors fading fast, Vietnam has maintained a fertility rate above 1.95 despite fast economic growth (which usually depresses fertility). If Vietnam can keep TFR above 1.8 over the coming decade they will be in relatively excellent shape.

East Asia’s largest economies will see their collective labor force drop dramatically between now->2040. These countries(China,Japan,& South Korea)have made up more than a quarter of Global GDP for years. Their labor force+young consumer spending crash will have enormous impact.

In just 25 years modern human society will undergo one of the greatest changes of its entire history. Almost every continent will have aging or aged or super aged populations. Just looking at this map shows how rapid this transformation will be.

🇪🇬👶Egypt on track to have a TFR of less than 2.5 for the 1st time in history. TFR was 3.5 as recently as 2014 & 3.0 in 2018. Egypt is likely to fall below replacement TFR before 2030 as urban and secular couples see TFR plummet just as religious couples also have smaller families.

🇦🇺👶Australia is now at ~1.50 TFR. The Lucky Country, which saw a substantial fertility clawback from 2006 to 2015 (when TFR stayed above 1.8 partly as the result of natalist benefits), is now facing the worst TFR ever recorded in its history. Around the same level as the UK.

The future is almost foretold for Eastern Europe. That fatal mixture of mass emigration and below replacement fertility is the absolute cause. But expect to see this pattern repeat across much of Latin America, developing Asia, & even places like Tunisia and Morocco.

This could be the 1st year in Thailand since records began that less than 500,000 annual births are recorded. The country is also on track for sub 1.0 TFR for 2024. This combined with potentially declining immigration from Burma by the 2030s spells disaster in the decades ahead. However, averting immediate demographic problems for Thailand by importing Burmese means trouble for Myanmar. Burma simply cannot have 200,000 young people move to Thailand annually in 2030s without dramatic long term consequences for their own country (which is already approaching replacement TFR).

If the CCP went culturally “all in” to achieve a transformation in fertility they would still not be able to get TFR back to 1.8. But it could still stop TFR from getting to South Korean or Taiwanese levels and possibly get TFR back to 1.3 or higher.

Obviously workism is a modern problem across all of East Asia that did not come from the West but rather the effort to become part of (& exceed within) the Western dominated global economy from 1975-2015. But CCP may use propaganda to make such concepts seem foreign\undesirable.