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Japan has the second oldest population in the world, averaging at 48. I was surprised to learn europe's average is 44 while both china and the US average 38 yea

Japan has the second oldest population in the world, averaging at 48. I was surprised to learn europe's average is 44 while both china and the US average 38 years old. If I had been asked to guess I would have assumed china averaged much younger than US, and US and europe would be closer

mytailorisrich 4y ago
Young population means high birthrate/population growth and/or low life expectancy. Neither is the case for China. Young populations are in Africa mostly.
- ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
  I was astounded to learn that in Afghanistan about half the population is under 15.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    iirc, Afghanistan is currently the country with the world's fastest population growth. Google says that population went from 19.7 million in 2001 (to take a significant date...) to 40.1 million in 2021. So +20 million/doubled in 20 years, which is crazy.
pessimizer 4y ago
China carefully controlled population growth for a lot of years. The result was very asymmetrical due to misogyny, but there was surely some addition to Chinese quality of life over the long term.
- qwytw 4y ago
  >surely some addition Disputable. And they'll have severe problems because of it in the upcoming decades.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    It’s definitely easy to argue that there are ‘some’ benefits to the one child policy. But it’s probably like a sugar rush, where an addict has the benefit of experiencing a short term high for a long term decline in health. China is fucked.
- dirtyid 4y ago
  PRC family planning is like one of the few "state has 100 year plan" memes that's worked out relatively well in real life. Reduce kids, increase parent mobility + productivity to build wealth, concentrate said resources to the 1-2 kids, move up industrial/skill/value chain, done at PRC population scale maybe chance get rich before old. Like this is basic demography planning / projection 101 for some reason useful idiots in west thinks PRC demographers didn't do obvious due diligence. Sure, policies over corrected on males/birthrate, as CCP hammering policies tend to do, but PRC demographic development is essentially on track - India now trending towards the shitshow that PRC was trying to avoid, 1B+ "low quality" people stuck in shit/informal economy, i.e. more bodies than what the system can handle. Now PRC has one of the greatest demographic trend in next 100 years with respect to sustainable human capita relative to geopolitics: 1) declining population, prodominantly poor, unskilled, and old being aged out. Supported by high home ownership and savings rate because this cohort has little expectation of state support. taps head don't need to worry about onerously high dependency western ratios if people don't expect such dependence. This cohort will just have to settle with mostly taking care of self while being 100x richer than when they were born. It's not 1st world QoL, many stuck with being old before rich, but it's better than most in same circumstances. 2) the high skill demographic divident / second wind of moving from current 15M STEM to 50-100M STEM in next 100 years, while broader workforce going through general upgrading of transitioning from current 25% skilled workforce to 70-80%, comparable to modern JP/DE. This is the largest, concentrated high skilled demographic divident in human history, likely for ever since very few countries (i.e. basically India) has the base population and systemic ability to coordinate and exploit so many bodies up the human capita chain. Most of west going to be reduced version of itself since already maxed out human capital, maybe can be backfilled by automation. Few immigration heavy anglos will grow at steady pace, assuming their onerous welfare nets hold. PRC is shifting from productive capacity of 2 Japans and 6 Nigerias into 6 Japans over same cycle - that's the most growth headroom and systemic capacity to back it up.
inglor 4y ago
Are you aware of the one child policy that was enacted in China for many years?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mytailorisrich 4y ago

Young population means high birthrate/population growth and/or low life expectancy. Neither is the case for China. Young populations are in Africa mostly.

ad404b8a372f2b9 4y ago
I was astounded to learn that in Afghanistan about half the population is under 15.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  iirc, Afghanistan is currently the country with the world's fastest population growth. Google says that population went from 19.7 million in 2001 (to take a significant date...) to 40.1 million in 2021. So +20 million/doubled in 20 years, which is crazy.

pessimizer 4y ago

China carefully controlled population growth for a lot of years. The result was very asymmetrical due to misogyny, but there was surely some addition to Chinese quality of life over the long term.

qwytw 4y ago
>surely some addition Disputable. And they'll have severe problems because of it in the upcoming decades.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  It’s definitely easy to argue that there are ‘some’ benefits to the one child policy. But it’s probably like a sugar rush, where an addict has the benefit of experiencing a short term high for a long term decline in health. China is fucked.
dirtyid 4y ago
PRC family planning is like one of the few "state has 100 year plan" memes that's worked out relatively well in real life. Reduce kids, increase parent mobility + productivity to build wealth, concentrate said resources to the 1-2 kids, move up industrial/skill/value chain, done at PRC population scale maybe chance get rich before old. Like this is basic demography planning / projection 101 for some reason useful idiots in west thinks PRC demographers didn't do obvious due diligence. Sure, policies over corrected on males/birthrate, as CCP hammering policies tend to do, but PRC demographic development is essentially on track - India now trending towards the shitshow that PRC was trying to avoid, 1B+ "low quality" people stuck in shit/informal economy, i.e. more bodies than what the system can handle. Now PRC has one of the greatest demographic trend in next 100 years with respect to sustainable human capita relative to geopolitics: 1) declining population, prodominantly poor, unskilled, and old being aged out. Supported by high home ownership and savings rate because this cohort has little expectation of state support. taps head don't need to worry about onerously high dependency western ratios if people don't expect such dependence. This cohort will just have to settle with mostly taking care of self while being 100x richer than when they were born. It's not 1st world QoL, many stuck with being old before rich, but it's better than most in same circumstances. 2) the high skill demographic divident / second wind of moving from current 15M STEM to 50-100M STEM in next 100 years, while broader workforce going through general upgrading of transitioning from current 25% skilled workforce to 70-80%, comparable to modern JP/DE. This is the largest, concentrated high skilled demographic divident in human history, likely for ever since very few countries (i.e. basically India) has the base population and systemic ability to coordinate and exploit so many bodies up the human capita chain. Most of west going to be reduced version of itself since already maxed out human capital, maybe can be backfilled by automation. Few immigration heavy anglos will grow at steady pace, assuming their onerous welfare nets hold. PRC is shifting from productive capacity of 2 Japans and 6 Nigerias into 6 Japans over same cycle - that's the most growth headroom and systemic capacity to back it up.

inglor 4y ago

Are you aware of the one child policy that was enacted in China for many years?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]