Russia’s GDP ($1.775 trillion) is much smaller than most people realize, less than Canada’s! ($1.991 trillion). One might surmise that relative GDP’s of Russia and China are peaking at present vis-à-vis the United States. Given that, 25–65 year olds provide the bulk of the workforce, in the unlikely event that birthrates could be encouraged to say double, it would take 25 years for newly borns to enter the workforce, let alone reach peak productivity. While there is a graying population in the United States, the trend is far more pronounced in China and Russia. Over the next few years, a large number of baby boomers will transition from the workforce into retirement all over the world. The United States enjoys much healthier demographics: baby boomers, for whatever reason, had more children than in Russia or China.Įxhibit 3: US Population pyramid, 2019 (in % of the population)Īs mentioned, demographics deals not only with population numbers, but also breakdown of the population according to age cohorts. In Russia, demographic implosion is now being further accelerated by men dying in their prime in Ukraine, and massive emigration since the start of the war. (Note how many more males than females at the bottom of the Chinese pyramid). Estimates range as high as 200 million to the number of infant girls killed so that the family could have another chance at having a son. Severe sanctions were imposed on families with more than one child. In China, the demographic implosion was accelerated by the Government’s “one child” policy. People tend to have fewer children when they live in overcrowded apartments than when children provide free labor on farms. In Russia, urbanization happened somewhat earlier than in China. So, if the population of certain countries (Russia, China, etc.) is expected to decrease by 30-40% the next 30 years (which is indeed the expectation), unless there is a productivity miracle, their GDP’s will constitute a smaller share of global GDP.Įxhibit 1: Russian population pyramid in 2019 (% of population)Įxhibit 2: Chinese population pyramid in 2019 (% of population) If you are one of these, perhaps by the time you finish reading this article, you will be convinced how fundamentally demographics underpins economics. Many believe that demographics is at most remotely related to economics.
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