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Category: Demography
Demographics of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine
In his article of last summer “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, Vladimir Putin wrote the following:
“But the fact is that the situation in Ukraine today is completely different because it involves a forced change of identity. And the most despicable thing is that the Russians in Ukraine are being forced not only to deny their roots, generations of their ancestors but also to believe that Russia is their enemy. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the path of forced assimilation, the formation of an ethnically pure Ukrainian state, aggressive towards Russia, is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us. As a result of such a harsh and artificial division of Russians and Ukrainians, the Russian people in all may decrease by hundreds of thousands or even millions.”
The last sentence addressed the demographics of Russia, in particular the size of its population. For a long while, Putin has been mindful of Russia’s weak demographics. In the past, he has sought to stimulate Russia’s birth rate and has rewarded couples who have more children. According to UN estimates, the Russian population is not growing and its median age is rising. Because Putin views Ukrainians as the same people as Russians, a shift of the Ukrainian identity away from Russia and towards the West would mathematically reduce the total number of Russians. In other words, if you are Russian one day, you can be counted within the total Russian population. But if you no longer identify as Russian because of “forced assimilation”, it is possible that you may no longer be counted within that total.
So let’s take a quick look at the demographics of Russia, Ukraine and also Belarus since it too is viewed by Putin as part of the greater Russian people. As shown in the two tables below compiled from UN Population data, the population of Russia rose from 102.8 million in 1950 to 147.5 million in 1990, or a respectable average of 0.9% per year. But then it went flat after the breakup of the Soviet Union due to the deep economic problems that then affected Russia and other former Soviet Republics. According to the UN’s medium variant projection, Russia’s population will decline to 135 million in 2050. Meanwhile, the median age has nearly doubled since 1950 because couples are having fewer children, a phenomenon seen in many countries/regions including the United States and Europe.
Read moreUpdate: Working Age Population Around the World 1960-2050
This is an update of a similar post from 2015. The UN projections have changed but only by small numbers. The main observations are the same as six years ago (click table to enlarge in a new tab).
The working age population (WAP, those aged 15 to 64) of sub-Saharan Africa continues to grow rapidly. It has more than doubled since 1990 from 252 million to 609 million, and is expected to more than double again by 2050 to 1.3 billion. If the reality turns out to be anywhere near these projections, it will be a significant challenge for African economies to absorb and to employ productively this enormous amount of new human energy.
India faces a similar challenge with its WAP growing from 928 million now to 1.1 billion in 2050. Though daunting, this represents a slowdown in the rate of growth from the previous thirty-year span 1990-2020.
The WAP of Europe, China and Japan have already peaked and will be declining for the rest of the century, per UN projections. Europe’s decline from near 500 million in 2005 to a projected 407 million by 2050 is mainly due to eastern and southern Europe. The WAP of France and the United Kingdom will flatline to 2050 while those of Germany and Russia decline.
In the United States, the steady growth in the WAP between 1960 and 2005 combined with a falling dependency ratio to fuel strong economic conditions. Growth in the WAP is expected to be more muted in the decades ahead.
Compared to the late 20th century and the first decades of this century, the future growth in the WAP will taper off or even turn negative in several regions and countries. Sub-Saharan Africa stands out as the exception that will maintain strong WAP momentum through at least 2050.
Lebanon in Crisis, with Joe Issa El Khoury
“Historically, Lebanon prospered as a result of inflows of people and funds – people who came to take refuge in Lebanon and also funds. If we look at the post World War 2 period when modern Lebanon became independent and also at previous periods that Lebanon went through – and I mean over the past 100 or 200 years – one thing that was common to all these eras is its liberal economic system that was adopted by all who lived on this land. The constant was the liberal economic system.”____ Joe Issa El Khoury
Sami J. Karam speaks with Joe Issa El Khoury, a Beirut-based financier, about the tragic events that have unfolded in Lebanon since 2019. A sharp fall in the currency, a banking freeze, a political crisis, hyperinflation, and widespread street protests made 2019 a difficult year. But these events were then compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic and the explosion in the port of Beirut in 2020.
Issa El Khoury explains the sequence of events that led to the present, and offers a possible way forward.
Topics include:
- 0:00 Introduction of Joe Issa El Khoury
- 2:25 What is it like right now on the ground in Beirut?
- 8:33 Why did Lebanon have a golden period in 1945-75; why was it later so prone to crisis?
- 17:40 The Rafik Hariri era and the return of growth 1990-2005
- 20:00 What explains the weakness of the Lebanese state: geography and demographics
- 26:30 Lebanon’s diversity as a source of wealth; Example of Lebanese cuisine
- 30:40 Crossing the line from a laissez-faire economy to a crony economy
- 35:05 The real estate boom of 2007-11
- 36:55 The impact of the Syrian civil war
- 39:10 Crowding out the private sector
- 44:10 The proximate factors that led to the meltdown
- 46:15 The current condition of the banking sector; Role of the Central Bank
- 51:00 Will depositors suffer a haircut? The Lazard and other plans
- 54:45 Talk of privatization of state assets
- 59:45 Political patronage in the public sector
- 1:01:50 “All roads lead to Washington DC and the acronym IMF”
- 1:05:20 Political reform and the role of the diaspora
TO HEAR THE PODCAST, CLICK HERE OR ON THE TIMELINE BELOW:
Florida in the Election
A French version of this article appears in L’Express.
Former mayor Mike Bloomberg has announced that he would spend as much as $100 million of his own money to help Vice-President Biden prevail in Florida on Election Day. This underscores once again the importance of Florida in this and every presidential contest.
Florida has a good track record of picking the winner in a presidential election. With the messy 2000 contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore, the state gained prominence as the ultimate prize and must-win battleground. To be sure, it is not a perfect track record, given that Florida favored George H. W. Bush in 1992 and Richard Nixon in 1960 over winners Bill Clinton and John Kennedy. If you go to earlier times, you also find that Floridians misfired with John Davis and James Cox in 1924 and 1920, two unknowns today except among aficionados of electoral history. But in sum, four misses out of 25 elections over a century can indeed be called a strong track record.
The stakes are high in 2020 given the state’s 29 Electoral College votes and the tightness of the race according to the polls. Vice President Biden is now nominally ahead by 1 to 3%, an insignificant gap that can easily close or widen in the remaining days of the campaign, depending on a slew of factors, not least the performance of each candidate in the upcoming debates.
Read moreOn the Seasonality of the Virus
What are the odds that the coronavirus will recede on its own during the spring because of warmer temperatures or a higher ultraviolet (UV) index? This has been a question from the beginning.
There has been some research in support of the idea that the warmer season would force the virus to retreat. And there has been other research that concluded that the virus would retreat but not disappear, that it would survive in the southern hemisphere and that it could then stage a comeback in the northern hemisphere in the fall when cooler temperatures return.
Single Variables
Looking at the United States state by state, we find little correlation between the number of deaths per capita and the UV index. For example, Wisconsin with a UV index of 4 in March has so far suffered 25 deaths per million inhabitants, but Rhode Island also with a UV index of 4 saw as many as 60 deaths per million. At one extreme, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Connecticut and Massachusetts, all with a March UV index of 4, had over 100 deaths per million. At the other extreme, South Dakota also with a March UV index of 4 had only 7 deaths per million. (All deaths figures are as of 12th April 2020 per Worldometer). Read more
A Few Certainties About Covid-19
There is plenty that we do not know about the coronavirus. But let us take stock of the things that we do know for sure, and of some other things that we will soon know.
Real-world Exponentiality
By now, a child understands exponential growth. If you start with one apple on March 1st and double every three days, you will have a thousand apples on March 31st and a million on April 30th.
But in the real world, not the abstract world of math, there are constraints on that growth. Doubling your apples every three days is feasible for a month or so because you can probably find a thousand apples and also find a place to store them. But it would be more difficult to find, transport and store a million apples, unless you are willing to pack a six car garage with apples from floor to ceiling (accurate math). If you did, most of them would rot and your neighbors would call for psychiatric help, two other constraints on unbridled exponentiality. Read more
The Pandemic as a ‘Gray Rhino’ Event, with Michele Wucker
“The paradox of the Gray Rhinos is that the further they are down the road, the less likely you are to do something about them. But that is the time when it will cost the least and you are most likely to be successful.” ____ Michele Wucker
Sami J. Karam speaks to best-selling author Michele Wucker about her 2016 book The Gray Rhino and how its method and lessons apply to the coronavirus pandemic. Gray Rhino threats are highly probable, highly impactful but often neglected until it is too late or until the cost of dealing with them becomes very high.
Topics include:
- 0:00 Introduction of Michele Wucker
- 1:05 When will we be able to travel to Asia or Europe again?
- 3:10 Explaining the concept and examples of Gray Rhino events
- 9:00 Various reactions to the spread of the pandemic
- 15:50 Was the virus predictable?
- 19:20 Why should we have been readier for the virus when it is so rare?
- 22:00 Why we ignore what is “over there”. Did it start “over there” or over here?
- 25:35 How could we have prepared for the pandemic?
- 31:00 The current catch-22: deaths by virus vs. deaths of despair
- 44:10 Stages of a Gray Rhino event applied to the pandemic
- 50:10 What other Gray Rhino events do you worry about? A triad of Gray Rhinos
- 55:45 How alarmists help avert deep crises
- 59:40 Conclusion
TO HEAR THE PODCAST, CLICK HERE OR ON THE TIMELINE BELOW:
(photo of Michele Wucker by Hal Shipman)
2020 Election: Democrats Heading to a Brokered Convention?
An occasional commentary on the 2020 US Presidential Election in which demographics and identity politics play a bigger role than ever before. Here, we explain why primary and convention rules make it difficult for a frontrunner to emerge in a crowded field.
Today, President’s Day, is as good as any to draw some lessons from the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Crowded Field
FIRST, the Democrats do not yet have a candidate with proven national appeal. Although Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg ranked first and second in both states, they have yet to show that they can do well in states that are more ethnically diverse. Iowa is only 4% African-American and 6.2% Hispanic/Latino, and New Hampshire only 1.7% and 3.9% respectively. The United States overall is 13.4% African-American and 18.3% Hispanic/Latino.
For Bernie and Pete therefore, the test of national appeal will come in South Carolina and on Super Tuesday when several states with large minority populations will hold their primaries.
Although Bernie came first in New Hampshire with 25.7% of the vote, that result was as much cause for concern as for celebration. In 2016, running against only Hillary Clinton, Bernie had won New Hampshire with 60.1% of the vote. Of course, the lesser draw this year is explained by a more crowded field. Nonetheless, it showed that 74.3% of New Hampshire Democrats preferred someone else over Bernie, so long as her name was not Hillary Clinton. Read more
De-Politicizing Climate Activism
Or how Greta Thunberg can create more converts.
“Nature is not a temple. It is a workshop, and a human being is the worker in it.” _ Ivan Turgenev
Item 1: The outbreak of coronavirus that threatens to create a global pandemic and the tragic sudden death of basketball star Kobe Bryant both remind us that the unexpected can happen quickly and that we humans live in an environment that can at times be ruthlessly hostile.
Nature, fate, providence, or whatever one chooses to call it, works in inscrutable ways. The virus will spread and endanger millions, if humans do not stop it. It has no will or conscience and would inexorably destroy those who are dearest to us, in a matter of days. And, before downing Bryant’s helicopter and killing him, his young daughter and seven others, fate or gravity did not pause for a millisecond to ponder the sadness that it would inflict on hundreds of millions all over the world through such a senseless death.
Modern society is generally free of deadly viruses and helicopters are generally safe to fly. But it took centuries of human progress to get there in both instances. And it will take more human progress and ingenuity to seal the cracks in our vigilance that allowed the coronavirus to emerge and spread, and the helicopter to crash .
Item 2: Last week in Davos, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin volunteered that climate activist Greta Thunberg ought to get an economics degree before preaching her message to grown-up policy makers. That is more confidence in university economics departments than most of Miss Thunberg’s critics would be willing to concede. It is true that Miss Thunberg’s message is incomplete, but that is not for lack of economic pedigree. The building blocks that are glaringly missing from her campaign are 1) a better understanding of Turgenev’s aphorism on nature and man, and 2) a trip or two to China, India or other fast developing countries.