4 ms·

Isn't this the long arc of the sub replacement birthrates?

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Exactly. COVID deaths and retirements pulled the demographic curve forward. “It’s the demographics stupid,” with apologies to James Carville.
Gibbon1 4y ago
Also immigration is slowing and we're about to see the decline in births after the 2008 recession show up four years from now.
- vuln 4y ago
  Immigration is not slowing it could be peaking but we're seeing double even triple the number of monthly encounters at the southern border alone. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-enc...
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Immigration encompasses a lot more activity than just illegal crossings of the southern border. The Fed uses the term "slowing": https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2023/february/role-of-immigration-in-us-labor-market-tightness/ https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economi...
    - vuln 4y ago
      Yes they do say it slowed 2017-2020 and during the pandemic. The following line states: "More recent data show immigration has rebounded strongly, helping to close the shortfall in foreign-born labor and ease tight labor markets."
jackcosgrove 4y ago
Turns out there is a factor of production in short supply that's even more vital than microchips: human labor.
- patrickk 4y ago
  I wonder when rich countries (excluding Japan due to their culture) will start to agressively complete with each other for middle or high skilled foreign labour to plug vital gaps. Offering not only green cards or EU blue cards, but eventual citizenship, university tenureship, guarantee minimum salaries and more goodies, without caps on the numbers per year. Kind of like how Dubai or Australia does for nurses today, but for all sectors of the economy.
  - csomar 4y ago
    They already are (and are in trouble for that). The problem is not their refusal to accept foreigners but rather they are not fixing the real problem (low birth rates). You can fix the problem by increasing supply, creating new cities or satellite cities, etc… and they are not having superb growth either. The solution can be easily fixed. Most of Western cities are in a “failed state”. The US is a prime example of that. Japan, while quite functional, is also quite expensive to have kids in. I think Japan will be the Western state that fared the best out of all the Western countries. The US is definitively the worst: Being quite expensive while also quite dysfunctional, and with a bonus: high crime rate.
    - patrickk 4y ago
      > The problem is not their refusal to accept foreigners but rather they are not fixing the real problem (low birth rates). How can you fix low birth rates once the process is in decline? Are there any successful examples of a country that has gotten rich, or is getting rich, that has done it succesfully? Every example I've read says no, regardless of geography or culture. It seems an impossible problem to fix. In South Korea for example, I've read they've tried a veriety of incentives, and none work. The pressure to climb into or stay in the middle class, squeezes families or would-be mothers to work more, leading inevitably to lower birth rates as wages have stagnated over the past few decades (oversimplyifing but this applies everywhere).

Exactly. COVID deaths and retirements pulled the demographic curve forward. “It’s the demographics stupid,” with apologies to James Carville.

Gibbon1 4y ago

Also immigration is slowing and we're about to see the decline in births after the 2008 recession show up four years from now.

vuln 4y ago
Immigration is not slowing it could be peaking but we're seeing double even triple the number of monthly encounters at the southern border alone. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-enc...
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Immigration encompasses a lot more activity than just illegal crossings of the southern border. The Fed uses the term "slowing": https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2023/february/role-of-immigration-in-us-labor-market-tightness/ https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economi...
  - vuln 4y ago
    Yes they do say it slowed 2017-2020 and during the pandemic. The following line states: "More recent data show immigration has rebounded strongly, helping to close the shortfall in foreign-born labor and ease tight labor markets."

jackcosgrove 4y ago

Turns out there is a factor of production in short supply that's even more vital than microchips: human labor.

patrickk 4y ago
I wonder when rich countries (excluding Japan due to their culture) will start to agressively complete with each other for middle or high skilled foreign labour to plug vital gaps. Offering not only green cards or EU blue cards, but eventual citizenship, university tenureship, guarantee minimum salaries and more goodies, without caps on the numbers per year. Kind of like how Dubai or Australia does for nurses today, but for all sectors of the economy.
- csomar 4y ago
  They already are (and are in trouble for that). The problem is not their refusal to accept foreigners but rather they are not fixing the real problem (low birth rates). You can fix the problem by increasing supply, creating new cities or satellite cities, etc… and they are not having superb growth either. The solution can be easily fixed. Most of Western cities are in a “failed state”. The US is a prime example of that. Japan, while quite functional, is also quite expensive to have kids in. I think Japan will be the Western state that fared the best out of all the Western countries. The US is definitively the worst: Being quite expensive while also quite dysfunctional, and with a bonus: high crime rate.
  - patrickk 4y ago
    > The problem is not their refusal to accept foreigners but rather they are not fixing the real problem (low birth rates). How can you fix low birth rates once the process is in decline? Are there any successful examples of a country that has gotten rich, or is getting rich, that has done it succesfully? Every example I've read says no, regardless of geography or culture. It seems an impossible problem to fix. In South Korea for example, I've read they've tried a veriety of incentives, and none work. The pressure to climb into or stay in the middle class, squeezes families or would-be mothers to work more, leading inevitably to lower birth rates as wages have stagnated over the past few decades (oversimplyifing but this applies everywhere).