Newsweek (March 9)
“America’s teenage population is expected to shrink in the coming decade, whilst the number of people aged 70 or over expands by 14.5 million” as the 70 or over senior population is expected “to boom from 40.8 million to 55.3 million by 2033.” In the two decades since 1971, the U.S. fertility rate fell by 27%. The average woman now bears only 1.66 children, down from 2.26 fifty years ago.
Tags: 1.66 children, 2033, 70 or over, Boom, Fertility rate, Population, Seniors, Shrink, Teenage, U.S., Woman
Time (March 1)
“Until the 1970s, women in the most prosperous Asian economies like South Korea, Japan, and China were having more than five children on average. Today, that trend is starkly different.” And not just in Asia. Globally, “fertility rates have decreased worldwide” for seven decades. “Even in the most advanced economies, the rate is now 1.6 children per couple, compared to the recommended rate of 2.1 for countries wanting to keep a steady population without any migration.”
Tags: 1970s, Advanced economies, Asia, Asia. Fertility rates, Children, China, Japan, Migration, Population, Prosperous, South Korea, Steady, Women
Wall Street Journal (January 17)
“China last year ceded its centuries-old position as the world’s most populous country to India.” Births in 2023 fell by over half a million, “to just over 9 million in total, accelerating the decline in the country’s population as women shrugged off the government’s exhortations to reproduce.”
Tags: 2023, Accelerating, Births, Ceded, China, Decline, Exhortations, Government, India, Population, Populous, Shrugged, Women
Reuters (September 23)
“China’s population of 1.4 billion would not be enough to fill all the empty apartments littered across the country,” according to a former official “in a rare public critique of the country’s crisis-hit property market.” Official data shows approximately 7.2 million homes, but that excludes “the numerous residential projects that have already been sold but not yet completed” and speculatively purchased homes that remain vacant. Estimates vary, but “He Keng, a former deputy head of the statistics bureau,” estimates there aren’t enough people to fill China’s available housing inventory.
Tags: 1.4 billion, Apartments, China, Completed, Crisis-hit, Empty, Keng, Official data, Population, Property market, Residential projects, Sold, Speculative, Statistics bureau
The Guardian (September 4)
“With the population expected to decline dramatically in the coming decades–leaving a gaping hole in the workforce–Japan is quietly easing restrictions and accepting record numbers of migrants, mostly from Asian countries such as Vietnam, China, Indonesia and the Philippines.” Recent data shows “a jump in overseas-born residents, to an all-time high of around 3 million, almost 50% up on a decade ago.”
Tags: China, Decline, Dramatically, Easing, Indonesia, Japan, Migrants, Philippines, Population, Record numbers, Restrictions, Vietnam, Workforce
New Yorker (August 28)
“Japan is the first nation to experience a demographic tipping point where more than twenty per cent of the population is over sixty-five years old.” This magnifies the effects of climate change. Hot summer weather in Tokyo now lasts “some fifty days longer in recent years as compared with the twentieth century.” The additional “heat has proven a silent killer of these older citizens. Thirteen hundred people die of heatstroke annually in the country, the majority of them elderly.”
Tags: Climate change, Demographic, Elderly, Heatstroke, Hot, Japan, Magnifies, Over sixty-five, Population, Silent killer, Summer weather, Tipping point, Tokyo
The Guardian (July 26)
“Every one of Japan’s 47 prefectures posted a population drop in 2022, while the total number of Japanese people fell by nearly 800,000,” marking “two new unwelcome records for a nation sailing into uncharted demographic territory, but on a course many other countries are set to follow.”
Tags: 2022, Demographic, Drop, Japan, Population, Prefectures, Records, Uncharted, Unwelcome
Hindustan Times (May 5)
“India entered into a new age as the world’s largest country in 2023.” With a large percentage of its population falling into working age, India has “the potential to produce a ‘phenomenal’ demographic dividend to catapult India into the top three economies of the world in the next 25 years.” To do so, however, “harnessing the gender dividend is even more critical and transformational.”
Tags: Catapult, Critical, Demographic, Dividend, Economies, Gender, Harnessing, India, Phenomenal, Population, Potential, Working-age, World’s largest
Newsweek (April 30)
“Familiar alarm bells sounded in Japan this month as year-end population figures and new projections combined to paint an uncertain future for Asia’s No. 2 economy.” The latest figures show a “12th consecutive annual decline” with the nation’s population standing “at 124.94 million for the year to October, a decrease of over half a million people from 2021.” Moreover, “the working population, aged 15 to 64, fell to 74.2 million, and those above 65 reached 36.23 million—both respective records.” Japan is approaching the “point of no return.”
Tags: 124.94 million, Alarm bells, Asia, Decline, Decrease, Japan, No. 2 economy, Point of no return, Population, Projections, Records, Uncertain future
Financial Times (February 26)
These are, according to Citigroup analysts, “distinctly echoey times.” Their “research suggests that, if it is not careful, China may be on track for a new wave of Japanification.” China is now remarkably similar to Japan’s post-property bubble era in, for example, demographics. China’s population is “now shrinking as Japan’s did years earlier… a reminder that after 1990, Japan’s housing price index fell as the 35- to 54-year-old cohort decreased.” These and other factors call for warnings about “the potential risks for China’s banking system.”
Tags: 1990, Analysts, China, China’s banking system, Citigroup, Demographics, Echoey, Housing price index, Japanification, Population, Property bubble, Research, Risks, Shrinking, Warnings
