donheff
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I have for years labored under the illusion that Europe and the US are spiraling downward with less than replacement level birth rates. This article in the Wilson Quarterly puts that to rest. Birthrates are modestly rising in Europe and North America and falling rapidly in China and the mid-east. According to the article US births could equal China's by mid-century. Of course China could probably change that with a policy shift. While immigrant birth rates in Europe and the US are higher than "native" rates, native rates are increasing while immigrant rates drop to the local level within a couple of generations. Lots of interesting information in the article. For example, it predicts dependency rates (i.e. the number of non-workers, young or old, to workers) in both Europe and the US at sustainable levels. The difference is that more of those "dependents" will be old rather than young. The article closes with this:
The world’s median age is 28 today, and it is expected to reach 38 by the middle of the century. In the United States, the median age at that point will be a *young*ish 41, while it will be over 50 in Japan and 47 in Europe. The United States will be the only Western country to have been in the top 10 largest countries in terms of population size in both 1950 and 2050. Russia, Japan, Germany, Britain, and Italy were all demographic titans in the middle of the 20th century. Today, only Russia and Japan still (barely) make the top 10. They will not stay there long. The world has changed. There is more and faster change to *come.
The world’s median age is 28 today, and it is expected to reach 38 by the middle of the century. In the United States, the median age at that point will be a *young*ish 41, while it will be over 50 in Japan and 47 in Europe. The United States will be the only Western country to have been in the top 10 largest countries in terms of population size in both 1950 and 2050. Russia, Japan, Germany, Britain, and Italy were all demographic titans in the middle of the 20th century. Today, only Russia and Japan still (barely) make the top 10. They will not stay there long. The world has changed. There is more and faster change to *come.