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.
Aaron M. Renn, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal, invited founder Sami J. Karam to discuss populyst and the populyst index. Topics include the economies of America and China, Europe’s demographic stagnation and Africa’s population explosion.
TO HEAR THE PODCAST, CLICK HERE OR ON THE TIMELINE BELOW:
A few days ago, the United States reached agreement on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with eleven other nations (see list in tables below). Here is how the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) describes the TPP on its web page:
President Obama’s trade agenda is dedicated to expanding economic opportunity for American workers, farmers, ranchers, and businesses. That’s why we are negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 21st century trade agreement that will boost U.S. economic growth, support American jobs, and grow Made-in-America exports to some of the most dynamic and fastest growing countries in the world.
A fast growing economy usually requires a growing working-age population. It is informative in this regard to look at the size of the working-age population (wap) for different regions and countries of the world.
The growth prospects of Brazil, Russia and China are dimming, while those of India are flaring.
If one is a lonely number, then ‘I’ could be a lonely letter, at least when it comes to the ‘I’ of the BRIC countries. Brazil, Russia and China all face mounting challenges in 2015 but the road ahead seems wide open for India. The main concern with this opening statement is that it seems to be the view of a large majority of observers.
Still, a majority is not the same as a consensus and certainly not the same as an extreme consensus. In investing, the consensus view is often right but the extreme consensus is absolutely and always wrong. For example, the consensus to buy tech stocks in 1997 was right but the extreme consensus to sell all non-tech and buy only tech in early 2000 was very wrong. When it comes to India, we are with the majority view, edging into consensus territory, but still far from extreme consensus. There remain enough doubters to ensure that this story still has plenty of time to play out.
Our approach to the topic is resolutely from the point of view of demographics. Demographics are not the be all and end all of an economy, but they are a very important vector, one of three very important vectors, the other two being innovation and institutional strength. Looking at the BRIC countries, the demographics of Russia and China are poor and those of Brazil are neutral. By contrast, the demographics of India, though challenging due to the large population size, could hold much promise if this huge newly created human energy can be harnessed and channelled in the right directions.
In general, the best demographic profile for an economy would be a rising population coupled with a declining dependency ratio (the ratio of dependents to workers). The increase in population means that demand for goods and services continues to grow. And the declining dependency ratio means that there is plenty of discretionary capital for consuming and for investing.
The US, Europe and China were in this sweet spot until six or seven years ago. Indeed, much of the world was in this sweet spot, a fact which largely explains the enormous creation of wealth and improvement in living conditions for billions of people in the past few decades. Things got more challenging in the middle of the last decade when dependency ratios in several countries bottomed out and started to rise.
BRIC Countries Total Dependency Ratios
We can’t blame the 2008 crisis on demographics alone. There were many abuses and excesses in the system which brought about the crisis. But it is worth noting that the crisis struck about the same time that a big reversal in demographics was taking place. A crisis would have come any way but instead of 2008, perhaps it would have come in say 2012 if the dependency ratio had bottomed four years later than it did.
Nor should anyone be surprised that Japan peaked in the late 1980s and has been struggling since then. Its dependency ratio bottomed in the early 1990s. Or that China saw a huge boom since 1980 after it introduced its one-child policy, thus engineering a very steep decline in its dependency ratio. Or that the US recovery has been slow, given that its population growth has slowed down and its dependency ratio has been rising.
USA, Europe, Japan Total Dependency Ratios
As shown in the first chart above, India is the only BRIC country with a declining dependency ratio between now and 2030. Russia and China’s are already rising and Brazil’s will bottom and rise by the end of this decade. Russia seems to be in the worst shape since it has both a declining population and a rising dependency ratio.
Finally two quick words on the other big vectors of economic growth: innovation and institutional strength. Innovation in Brazil, China (ex-Taiwan) and Russia has been slow and cannot be considered a factor in future growth. There was plenty of excess capital to invest in new businesses when the dependency ratio was declining in all those countries but it went instead into real estate and other unproductive investments. Innovation has been slightly better in India and could take a big leap forward with more capital investments in the decades ahead. India also has an immeasurably greater competitive advantage compared to the other BRIC members: its population speaks English.
Institutional Strength can be the subject of endless debate, especially if we try to draw comparisons across countries. All emerging countries have to make significant progress on this account.
Below are charts of country and regional dependency ratios.
First some definitions:
The total dependency ratio is the ratio of the population aged 0-14 and 65+ to the population aged 15-64. They are presented as number of dependents per 100 persons of working age (15-64).
The child dependency ratio is the ratio of the population aged 0-14 to the population aged 15-64. They are presented as number of dependents per 100 persons of working age (15-64).
The old-age dependency ratio is the ratio of the population aged 65 years or over to the population aged 15-64. They are presented as number of dependents per 100 persons of working age (15-64).
In theory, the economy does better when the dependency ratio is falling and less well when it is rising. But, as discussed in this previous post, two important mitigating factors are a country’s rate of innovation and its institutional strength.
United States, Europe, Japan
Figure 1 shows the total dependency ratios of Europe, Japan and the US from 1950 to 2050.
Fig. 1. Total Dependency Ratio, Europe, Japan, USA
Key takeaways are:
The ratio bottomed in Japan two decades before it bottomed in Europe and the US, which may explain Japan’s stagnation relative to the US and Europe in the 1990-2008 period.
In the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, Europe and the US benefited from a declining ratio.
All three ratios will rise from now into the foreseeable future. But Japan’s ratio will rise faster due to its older population.
BRIC countries
Figure 2 shows the total dependency ratios of the BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China.
Fig. 2. Total Dependency Ratio, BRIC countries
Key takeaways are:
The ratios of Russia and China are both bottoming in the middle of the present decade and will rise for the foreseeable future.
Brazil’s ratio will bottom later this decade and will subsequently rise.
India’s ratio will continue to fall until about 2030 and will level off until 2050, which may help its economy grow faster.
Country Charts
Following are charts for a few individual countries and for Europe and Africa, showing all three dependency ratios as defined above. The blue line is the total ratio, the red is the child ratio and the green is the old-age ratio.
Fig. 3. Dependency Ratios, USA
In the case of the US, Europe, Japan and China, it is clear that the rise in the total dependency ratio is mainly driven by a rising old-age ratio. Japan has the fastest rising old-age ratio. None of these countries is expected to see a big rise in its child ratio.
Fig. 4. Dependency Ratios, Europe
Fig. 5. Dependency Ratios, Japan
Note the steep 40+ point decline in China’s total dependency and child dependency ratios between 1970-2010. It is due to the country’s one-child policy and it provided a big boost to the Chinese economy in recent decades.
Fig. 6. Dependency Ratios, China
The following chart compares the total dependency ratios of the US and China. China’s ratio fell faster and will also climb faster.
Fig. 7. Total Dependency Ratio, USA, China
India and Sub-Saharan Africa have a more promising demographic profile. A declining total ratio could markedly improve their economies, if other obstacles can be overcome. In addition, unlike other regions, Sub-Saharan Africa will not have a rising old-age ratio for the foreseeable future.
America’s anemic recovery can be explained by its slowing demographics.
Politicians tend to overstate the positive impact of their policies on the economy and to also exaggerate the negative impact of their opponents’ policies. In all likelihood, there are other more potent factors at work.
Instead of GDP, we look at wealth creation as the main measure of the economy. GDP measures economic activity which means that building roads to nowhere is a positive contributor to GDP in the near term because of the jobs provided and the material and services purchased. But building roads to nowhere is a waste of money. By contrast, wealth creation accounts for the return on invested capital and differentiates between good and bad projects.
And wealth creation has three main drivers: innovation, demographics and the economy’s institutional framework.
To illustrate the importance of innovation, consider a country where there is little innovation and therefore little creation of intellectual property assets. The main assets in such an economy are hard assets, such as real estate, natural resources and the like. Unless there is strong demand for these assets from foreign markets, the economy of that country would stagnate or grow slowly with its population. Good examples of such countries today are commodity economies like the leading oil producers, industrial metal producers etc.
Now consider a country where there is innovation but where the population is small. Here the amount of wealth created by innovation would be quite small unless there is strong foreign demand for the products and services brought about by that innovation. A new iPhone that can only be marketed to a small population would create a lot less wealth than one marketed to a large population. Good examples are Switzerland and Finland which are quite innovative, have relatively small populations but export their products in large quantities.
Innovation is back.
Finally, consider a country that has lots of smart innovators and a large population but that suffers from a poor institutional framework. It is a country where the government and citizens are corrupt, where contract law is nonexistent, where capital markets are small, where property rights are not protected. There would be little wealth creation in such a country because the innovators would emigrate to another country where they could more readily prosper from their innovations.
Since 1945, the United States has been blessed by all three major contributors to wealth creation: strong innovation, strong demographics and a stable and supportive institutional framework. The same has been true for Europe, albeit with slower innovation and slightly worse demographics. The same has been true for Japan, with still worse demographics.
So where do we stand today? Of the three main engines in the US, innovation and the framework are still going strong. But demographics have weakened in several ways. First, after declining for several decades, the dependency ratio (number of dependents per worker) has been rising since 2005. Second, the number of Americans aged 30-60, arguably the most economically active age bracket, has stagnated at a little over 120 million people. Previously, the 30-60 group had grown steadily in every year from 1978 to 2005.
Presidents Reagan and Clinton are credited with a successful economy but their years in office also benefited greatly from a falling dependency ratio. The same is true for the second President Bush until mid-decade when the dependency ratio bottomed out and started to rise.
The anemic recovery since 2008 can largely be explained by our deteriorating demographics. The US population used to grow by 1 to 2% every year, which meant that companies could count on real growth of 1 to 2% and another 2 to 4% of inflation. But since 2007, annual population growth has fallen below 1% and inflation has also fallen. So what used to be safe annual domestic revenue growth of 3 to 6% is now looking more like 1 to 3%.
In Europe too, the dependency ratio bottomed and started to rise in the middle of the 2000s decade. In addition, Europe has been less innovative than the US in the past ten years, which explains its stock market lagging the US market. The rise of Google, Facebook and others and the resurgence of Apple have all taken place in the new millennium. Europe has had no such large success stories. Worse, one of its former superstars, Nokia, has nearly disappeared. So Europe still has a strong institutional framework but its other two engines of wealth creation are sputtering.
Japan’s dependency ratio bottomed in the early 1990s which may explain the country’s stagnation since then. It remains highly innovative but perhaps not sufficiently so in new focused companies with higher returns on capital.
The lesson of recent years is that US innovation may be strong enough to counter the effect of weakening demographics, but not strong enough to produce strong GDP growth. In addition, revenue growth in several industries has become highly dependent on exports to emerging markets. The economy and markets will do well if export demand continues to grow. But if emerging economies experience an important slowdown, our worsening demographics means that there will not be sufficient demand at home to pick up the slack.
For more data on US and world demographics, please refer to these previous posts:
For Singapore citizen Kelly Ang, 25, who married a year ago, having a baby is not a top priority. The public relations professional, who works 11 hours a day, said she has no time to raise a family.
“At the moment I think it is difficult if I were to hold my current job and have a child too,” Ang said. “The work-life balance is something that would be a deterrent.”
Ang is one of many young people across Asia whose decision to put off having children is worrying their governments. From Taiwan to Singapore, authorities are stepping in to organize speed dating and other matchmaking events in a desperate attempt to stem falling birth rates. READ MORE.
Population forecasts are notoriously difficult and nonlinear. Nonetheless, Japan has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world and the Japan Times makes this dire projection today:
2100 will see Tokyo’s population standing at around 7.13 million — about half of what it is today — with 45.9 percent of those in the metropolis aged 65 or over, a group of academics and bureaucrats has concluded.
Tokyo’s population, which stood at 13.16 million in 2010, will peak at 13.35 million in 2020 before dropping by 45.8 percent from the 2010 census figure 88 years from now, the group, including seven academics and 10 metro government and municipal bureaucrats, said Sunday.
This means the 2100 population will be resemble that of 1940’s Japan, before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
“The number of people in their most productive years will decline, while local governments will face severe financial strains,” the group said in a statement. “So it will be crucial to take measures to turn around the falling birthrate and enhance social security measures for the elderly.”
China is entering a “danger zone”where a financial crisis may become more likely because of increases in loans and property prices coinciding with an aging of the population, a Bank of Japan (8301) official said.
“If a demographic change, a property-price bubble, and a steep increase in loans coincide, then a financial crisis seems more likely,” BOJ Deputy Governor Kiyohiko Nishimura said in a speech for a conference in Sydney, posted on the central bank’s website today. “And China is now entering the danger zone.”
China is at risk of emulating crises in Japan in the 1990s and the U.S. in the 2000s, according to Nishimura, who cited a Chinese working-age population that is “close” to peaking as a proportion of the total. Demographic changes can provide fertile ground for “malign property bubbles” because of the effect on demand for real estate, he said. READ MORE.
