Americans love to complain about the negative outlooks of the future. But despite the great divide along gender, race, and political lines, the country is actually the best positioned to succeed moving into 2035 (demographically speaking). In 2015 Nicholas Eberstadt, one of the world’s leading political economists and demographers, brought lots of data and research to his world population outlook at Oracle’s OpenWorld event. In a very interesting, and very telling presentation, Eberstadt made the argument that things aren’t as bad as media outlets describe moving into the future.
Now while I won’t cover his entire presentation, I will highlight the more interesting points covered in the Forbes article listed below. Take a look and enjoy:
- Trouble in China: China, despite having the largest population in the world will see a massive drop by 2035. This will create major issues with a healthcare industry not equipped to handle the amount of people that will need it. In addition, due to the county’s “one-child” policy, the gender ration of men to women may grow as high as 120:100 creating a subculture of uneducated, frustrated single males that generally correlate to “extreme right wing” philosophy.
- Sub-Sahara will grow in population, but not education: By 2035, the working age (15 – 64 year olds) of the world will grow by 800 million, half as fast as the previous 20 years. “Almost half of that 800 million will come from the 50 or so countries of sub-Saharan Africa—the poorest, least-educated region of the world.”
- Russia is well educated but business restricting: Russia is one of the most well educated countries in the world, but its lack of business opportunities will only grow. “Russia’s share of international patent applications is just two-tenths of 1%, despite its having 2% of the world population and 5% of the world’s college graduates.” Due to this issue, it is expected that technical advances will continue to struggle into the foreseeable future.
- Mexico has potential: Despite its bad press, Mexico’s ” 20-somethings have a higher level of education than their counterparts in Germany (perhaps in part because of Germany’s extensive apprenticeship trade programs).”
- United States will continue its economic dominance: Although America may frown on it currently, immigration has and will be the key to the countries success. The country has a positive replacement-level fertility rate due to high level of immigrants. This high level of immigration includes “an influx of highly educated immigrants at a rate above the OECD average”