Demographics

[Michael]

Well it looks like everyone's demographic profiles (and future projections) are changing rapidly these days.

This article gives an excellent summary of all the major pattern reversals of late. Notably, Britain and France have reversed their falling birthrates and now are projecting to have growing populations. US birthrate has also picked up. Birthrates in China are so low that China might have a population half of its present total by the end of this century.

Lots of little factoids here...

Source (http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=519403)

One of the most interesting 'factoids' is that the USA is likely to be the ONLY country on the planet that was in the 'top ten' most populated nations in both 1950 and 2050.

There is also some interesting information on the sex imbalance problem in Asia - China in particular where young males outnumber young females by a large margin. Apparently many millions of young Chinese males are doomed to be unmarried and this is a potential powderkeg.

All in all, I highly recommend reading this article. Most of everything I've heard said about demographics in the last ten years or so has turned out to be wrong. The truth is stranger than fiction!

[Donkey]

I don't have time to read the whole thing, but I did a quick scan to see if they mentioned what I consider to be a pretty relevant fact:

A similar upturn is under way in the United States, where the fertility rate has climbed to its highest level since 1971, reaching 2.1 in 2006, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. New projections by the Pew Research Center suggest that if current trends continue, the population of the United States will rise from today’s total of some 300 million to 438 million in 2050. *Eighty-*two percent of that increase will be produced by new immigrants and their U.S.-born descendants.

I noticed a similar observation for Europe. So yes, country's birth rates are going up, but in that process, traditional demographics might just get turned upside down.

[Michael]

I don't have time to read the whole thing, but I did a quick scan to see if they mentioned what I consider to be a pretty relevant fact:



I noticed a similar observation for Europe. So yes, country's birth rates are going up, but in that process, traditional demographics might just get turned upside down.
Actually, if you read the whole article, you will see that the USA is quite unique in this respect - with the vast majority of the increase in birthrate coming from immigrants. That is NOT the case in Europe as the article clearly notes.

[Dominick]

Sorry, but this just shows the triviality of linear extrapolation. A decent study would indicate a margin of error and that margin could be huge for a timespan of 40 years.

What's interesting is that this article dispels the myth of a Muslim takeover of Europe, an insanity I must have read a thousand times.


One of the most interesting 'factoids' is that the USA is likely to be the ONLY country on the planet that was in the 'top ten' most populated nations in both 1950 and 2050.
You must have misread that. China and India both were in the Top10 in 1950 and I can't see how they would possibly fall out of it by 2050. (Unless you know something about the swine flu we don't ? :))

http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbrank.pl

This is the list of 1950 :

1 China 562,579,779
2 India 369,880,000
3 United States 152,271,000
4 Russia 101,936,816
5 Japan 83,805,000
6 Indonesia 82,978,392
7 Germany 68,374,572
8 Brazil 53,443,075
9 United Kingdom 50,127,000
10 Italy 47,105,000


This is the current list:

1 China 1,338,612,968
2 India 1,166,079,217
3 United States 307,212,123
4 Indonesia 240,271,522
5 Brazil 198,739,269
6 Pakistan 176,242,949
7 Bangladesh 156,050,883
8 Nigeria 149,229,090
9 Russia 140,041,247
10 Japan 127,078,679


And this is a projecion for 2050 :

1 India 1,807,878,574
2 China 1,424,161,948
3 United States 439,010,253
4 Indonesia 313,020,847
5 Pakistan 295,224,598
6 Ethiopia 278,283,137
7 Nigeria 264,262,405
8 Brazil 260,692,493
9 Bangladesh 233,587,279
10 Congo (Kinshasa) 189,310,849

Indonesia and Brazil fit the bill too by the way. Another thing is that 5 million deaths apparently don't even put a dent in such predictions as Congo makes the Top10.

[Donkey]

Actually, if you read the whole article, you will see that the USA is quite unique in this respect - with the vast majority of the increase in birthrate coming from immigrants. That is NOT the case in Europe as the article clearly notes.
Oh. I guess I misread. I will revisit the article when I have a minute.

[andrew45611]

Here are some demographics I noticed while watching 1000 visitors in the Rotunda Thurs AM and PM. Also about 7% visiting were in uniform (military, police, fireman, nuns) and one American Indian chief in full dress.

Male 55%

Female 45%


Caucasian 97%

Black 3%


MisterNice