Brittany GoldrickPopulation, Health

 Annual Editions # 27  Global Aging and the Crisis of the 2020s

By: Neil Howe and Richard Jackson 

Global Aging

• By 2020, demographic trends threaten widespread disruption

• The developed world has been aging, due to falling birthrates and rising life expectancy

• According to the United Nations Population Division- there will be more people in their 70s then in their 20s by 2030

• European nations are on track to lose nearly ½ of their total current populations by the end of the century

The working-age population has already begun to contract in several large developed countries,

including Germany, and Japan

• Rising healthcare costs will place a large burden on the government

• China, will face a massive age wave, that could slow economic growth and participate political crisis just as it is taking over America as the world’s leading economic power

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Graying Economies

• Even at full employment, GDP growth could stagnate or decline

• The number of workers may fall faster then production rises

• Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s 2007 survey of 53 countries, new business start-ups in high-income countries are heavily from the young community

• Old age benefits systems could average an extra 7% of GDP to government budget by 2030

Diminished Stature

• We may see a ride in cartel behavior to protect market share

• The rapid growth in ethnic and religious minority populations, could strain civic cohesion and foster a new diaspora politics

• The demand for low-wage labor, immigration at its current rate by 2030 could double the % of Muslims in France, and triple in Germany

• Many large European cities may be a majority of Muslims

Diminished Stature Continued..

• America is also graying, but at a slower pace• The United States is the only developed nation

where fertility is at or above the replacement rate of 2.1 average lifetime births per woman

• The challenge facing America in the 2020s will be the inability of the other developed nations to lend much needed assistance

Perilous Transitions

• Since 1975, the average fertility rate in developing nations has dropped from 5.1-2.7 children per woman

• In many of the poorest and least stable countries (especially in the sub-saharan Africa) the demographic transition has failed to gain traction, leaving countries with large bulge youth groups

• The demographic transition can trigger a rise in extremism

• International terrorism in developing nations is positively correlated with income, education, and urbanization

Storm Ahead

• China may be the first country to grow old before growing rich, due to their 1 child per couple policy

• Imagine workforce growth slowing to zero while millions of elders go without healthcare, or pensions

• China could move towards a social collapse• Russia’s prime minister stated, “ the most acute

problem facing our country today is our demographic implosion”

Storm Ahead Continued…

• Sub-Saharan Africa, which has the world’s highest fertility rates and is also ravaged by AIDS, it will still be struggling with large youth bulges

• If the correlation between extreme youth and violence endures, chronic unrest and state failure could continue throughout much of the sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Muslim world through 2020 or longer if the fertility rates fail to drop

• One country is close to chaos, while another aspires to regional hegemony

Pax Americana Redux?

• During the Industrial revolution, the world grew faster then the rest of the worlds population, peaking at 25% of the world total in 1930

• It is projected to decline still further, to 10% by 2050• According to the Carnegie Projections, the US share of

total GDP will drop significantly, from 34% in 2009, to 24% in 2050

• By 2050, only one developed country will remain, the US, still in third place

• We are moving into a US role in a world that will need America more, not less