This graph from Statista accounts for fertility decline and current rates of immigration, to come up when actual population will start to decline in some countries
Author Archives: Rob Skelton
Econo-Terrorism for Depopulation to Save the Planet
In the last couple of years, the subject of population decline has become topical, with even Elon Mush mentioning it a few times. And rightly so. Not only is it well-known (because of Japan leading the charge) that the new population pyramid will mean more retired people and fewer workers. there is also the barely …
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Tokyo Dating App – Another Weak Response
When one of the globe’s largest economies is facing a demographic crisis, throwing $3M at an app won’t help, especially when it is run by the Tokyo government. Absurdly: Japanese media reports that said the app will require a confirmation of identity, such as a driver’s license, your tax records to prove income and a …
Desperate Immigrarion Measures to Boost GDP
The rich world is in the midst of an unprecedented migration boom. Last year 3.3m more people moved to America than left, almost four times typical levels in the 2010s. Canada took in 1.9m immigrants. Britain welcomed 1.2m people and Australia 740,000. In each country the number was greater than ever before. For Australia and …
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Hong Kong – Cash Bonus for Babies
Every advanced economy except the US is suffering from a fertility rate that is too low. While immigration can offset that, not many people are keen at present to move to Hong Kong, given all of its recent problems. People have been leaving, of course. The number of children being born in Hong Kong each …
Japan’s $38B Child Care Plan
That’s $38 billion (USD) annually. While it sounds like a lot, it actually isn’t much relative to the severity of their situation. Politicians would rather have small failures over larger ones… “This will bring our country’s spending per child on families to the level of Sweden,” said Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. In other words, socialism is …
Incentives Do Not Fix Fertility Rate Decline
In this well-researched and well-written article at Reason magazine, the primary focus is on what has caused the fertility decline. It pinpoints no single factor, and says that all of the known factors combined still do not explain the dramatic drops in children being born. It suggests that everything matters, plus there may be lag …
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Nagi, Japan – Baby Making Town
The WSJ reports on a town in Japan that is bucking the trend, and easily have fertility above the replacement rate. What is their secret? The fertility rate reached 2.95 in 2019, and has slipped back to what is still a very commendable 2.68 in 2021, a pandemic year. Japan as a whole is a …
Korea’s Economy & Population Decline
When researching degrowth, I find that nobody ever advocates for or predicts actual degrowth. They end up discussing no-growth, which of course is impossible to keep at precisely not going up or down. So sometimes instead of degrowth they advocate for very low growth, below 1%. But actual economic degrowth is too hard to discuss …
Internal Migration Will Worsen Population Decline
While we tend to look at averages and global totals, the reality is the population decline is going to be very lumpy. After we reach peak global population, Africa will still grow for a while. Even though Japan peaked ages ago and there are empty houses everywhere, Tokyo is still growing and houses are being …
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