Amit's Blog

I wrote an earlier set of blogs that looked at the demographic cliff facing many countries and the impact it is already having. Those blogs dwelt mainly on the numbers and the consequences. I came across a set of videos from a Czech researcher that delves deeper into the history and the causes of these demographic changes. These are really good videos that I felt compelled to share. This is a YouTube channel from the Czech Republic called " KaiserBauch ". This channel is pragmatic in its views and tends to look at cultural contexts of mass immigration. The first two videos I am sharing are about The United States. The videos explore the contexts of migrations from Latin America and make a great observation of how well-integrated these communities are in the country. For example, they are very well assimilated into the Armed Forces and the Police, which is quite in contrast to what has happened in Europe where immigrants from the Arab world, Africa, and elsewhere have cont...

  Part 3 – Greying and aging before it gets rich   In the 3 rd part of this series, we take a look at China. China has been the most dynamic economy on the world stage during the last 40 years. It is now the second-largest economy in the world and has largely been the growth engine for the rest of the world. During these years it has also pulled more than 500 million people out of abject poverty, a feat unparalleled in the history of the world. China has been a very strong economic performer and is set to overtake The United States during this decade. However, it is still a middle-income country with an annual per capita income of around USD 12,500. This is about 1/4 th the level of any of the developed economies. Aging is coming relatively early to China and the consequences cannot be pretty. China has a certain similarity with Japan, in the sense that it hasn’t seen large scale immigration. However, its internal distortions have been incredibly big. First, there wa...

  Part 2 – What has been the Japanese Experience   In this, the second part of the series, we take a look at Japan. Japan was one of the dominant economies of the last century (it still is the 3 rd largest economy in the world) and has consistently enjoyed high levels of per capita income. However, during the last 30 years, the economy has hardly grown while it has rapidly aged. At the beginning (not too long ago; just about 150 years ago) most countries had high birth and high death rates resulting in slow population and low economic growth.   Countries that had industrialized rapidly had started growing faster (though some may argue that colonialization played a part too). There is no doubt that industrial society harnessed labour and capital more effectively than a purely agrarian society could. After some time, economic growth results in better public health and a decrease in death rates, thereby stimulating population growth and, with a lag, faster economic ...

  Part 1 – The key parameters that influence shifts Economic demography examines the determinants and consequences of demographic change, including fertility, mortality, marriage, divorce, location (urbanization, migration, density), age, gender, ethnicity, population size and population growth. Demographic dividend refers to the growth in an economy that is the result of a change in the age structure of a country's population. The change in age structure is typically brought on by a decline in fertility and mortality rates. Demographic dividend occurs when the proportion of working people in the total population is high because this indicates that more people have the potential to be productive and contribute to growth of the economy. In essence, there’s a period in nation’s progress when longevity is increasing and working age population is large in proportion to the old age population. The median age is low. This is when the nation is best positioned to move forward. In th...