
A demographic time bomb that could hit America - eplanit
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/can-the-us-avoid-japans-demographic-disaster/2018/12/31/1f29ba66-0d3f-11e9-8938-5898adc28fa2_story.html
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dark_star
For the USA, this probably isn't a problem as long as we allow immigration the
way we do now. Here's the population pyramid diagram for the USA:

[https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-
america/2...](https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-
america/2017/)

For Japan:
[https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2017/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2017/)

For the whole world:
[https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2017/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2017/)

Ideally, the "pyramid" would be a cylinder, with all ages being roughly the
same distribution. This would be a population that is not growing or
shrinking. You can see that Japan's younger population is less than it's older
population, for the whole world there are many younger people than older...
and for the USA it's pretty close to a cylinder.

So will this demographic time bomb hit America? Probably not.

~~~
porpoisely
Isn't allowing immigration like we do just going to create an even greater
demographic time bomb in the future? Eventually, immigration is going to
decline and we are going to be faced with an even greater problem because the
population is so much larger.

And that's not factoring in climate change issues. Shifting millions of people
from countries that cause very little pollution on a per capita basis to the
country that leads the world in per capita basis is going to add to climate
and pollution issues.

Seems like we are between a rock and a hard place.

~~~
downrightmike
The long play is that by allowing immigration will make the USA the youngest
nation in the near future, and beyond that, immigration from previously 1st
world countries because the American economy is much better for them than
their own. Younger nations have more workers to keep social security afloat.

~~~
maxxxxx
One day these young workers get old and need social security. You can't rely
on a constant influx of young people forever.

~~~
downrightmike
It hasn't stopped since 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

~~~
maxxxxx
The whole battle about immigration shows to me that the country is filling up
slowly. For a long time they could just settle on empty land or take it from
native americans but that's not possible anymore.

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danjayh
The article mentions childcare, and I can definitely attest that it is a
factor in people's family size decisions, along with the push for two working
parents. We are privileged enough that we can survive on one income, however,
were that not the case we'd be looking at paying $12/k a year for each child
in childcare, on top of other baby-rearing costs. As it is, my wife plans to
drop to (extreme) part time once we hit baby #2 ... at that point we'll still
suffer some loss, but at baby #3 it will be a wash.

And why such a childcare shortage? The government, of course. In a time of
extreme demand, shortage, and rapidly rising rates, the availability of
childcare is still decreasing. I asked about this, and our local center has to
report to & be inspected by three separate government agencies. Their
compliance costs are enormous. They're as much a paperwork collection,
processing, and reporting center as they are a childcare center. With the
advent of nanny cams, I can watch my child any time I choose, and record the
action whenever I wish. Makes me wonder if the regulation needs to be quite so
heavy in the modern age.

On a separate but related note: the impact of low birthrates and long life
expediencies is unavoidable. Either:

1) People need to work longer, or

2) Retired people need to have a lesser lifestyle (so that the working
population can live approximately the same lifestyle that current retirees had
while _they_ were working), or

3) Working people need to have a lesser lifestyle compared to past generations
(to free up resources for retirees)

It seems that we are slow-walking towards 3), which is a problem because it'll
to some extent push the working population into a death spiral. They have
less, so they work more, so they have less children, and the problem worsens.
Repeat.

~~~
chrisseaton
> We are privileged enough that we can survive on one income, however, were
> that not the case we'd be looking at paying $12/k a year for each child in
> childcare, on top of other baby-rearing costs.

This seems like a bit of a puzzle here. Staying home means you lose one
income. But going to work costs you almost that entire income if you have a
couple of children for childcare costs, and on top of that you also never see
your children. So why not stay home? Same money plus better life for all three
of you.

Is it so you can stay in the industry and in the future when they go to school
you have kept your high paying job?

~~~
purephase
It's not as straightforward. The stay-at-home-parent leaves the workforce
which is good for the first pre-school years cost-wise, but getting back into
the workforce after those "lost" years (bad term, as they're not lost --
there's true value in them to society, it's just not paid work) is
inheritently difficult.

Overall lifetime income is impacted by this decision.

This is the substantive metric for the gender wage gap as that gap is measured
in the overall lifetime income, not the per-wage of equivalent positions as
it's inaccurately reported.

Women generally leave the workforce to care for children, lose their
prestige/position and when re-entering have to start at the beginning or lower
position/wage and try to catch-up.

Better childcare options would improve this immeasurably, or less stigma
around both parents sharing the childcare time equitably would as well. In
some countries this is the case, and it is having a measurable impact on
childbirth rates.

~~~
CalRobert
This exactly.

My wife and I have one child. For the first six months, the child was home
with her (the typical maternity period in this country)

For the second six months, she worked and the child was in daycare. It was a
really good daycare, and the minder was damn near angelic. But it was also
kind of horrible. Many nights I had put the child to bed before she was home
from work. We wondered what the hell the point of having a kid you get to see
on the weekends is.

After paying for childcare, she had relatively little to show for her job. We
were also a lot more likely to do expensive things like eat out, etc. due to
exhaustion. Part time work was not an option for either of us.

We eventually decided to have one parent stay home. It was her, because she
made less money (perhaps because of a self-reinforcing bias that mothers are
more likely to stay home, and thus are paid less?). Realistically speaking, it
wasn't "I want to take a few years off work" but rather "I am throwing my
_entire career_ in to the dumpster for this". Because in most fields that have
decent jobs, you just _can't_ leave for 3-5 years and hop back in where you
left off. It doesn't happen.

Paradoxically, because she's home with the kid this makes us more likely to
consider having a second, because childcare is a sunk cost. If there were
inexpensive childcare and better part-time options we'd be more likely to
stick with one. I suspect this explains why Nordic countries have low birth
rates and high labour participation rates from mothers. That's not a bad thing
though - ultimately the world should be working to get the fertility rate
below 2 children per women, especially in the developed world.

We fell in to the two-income trap in the 1970's and it's been getting worse
ever since. Combined with the death of decent-paying blue collar jobs (though
programming is quick becoming blue collar) it will result in similar
decisions.

------
blancheneige
what's the matter with a shrinking population? we keep hearing how automation
is going to put so many people out of work anyway. a lower economic throughput
isn't dramatic if the population gets proportionally smaller. not to mention
that population growth can well be cyclical: there used to be a time where the
US population was just half of what it is today after all, no reason why we
couldn't be headed toward some kind of equilibrium. it doesn't have to be a
downward spiral to zero.

the real concern seems to be coming from the elites whose leech-like business
model is premised on squeezing as much wealth as possible from the consuming
masses. it's this uninterrupted funneling that prevents their whole machinery
from collapsing.

~~~
porpoisely
A shrinking population places enormous strains on social benefits ( social
security, medicare, etc ) and would devastate the two largest retirement
assets of people - homes and stock market ( 401k ).

The dominant 20th century economic and social model is based on constant
population and consumption growth. Ultimately, as a society, we've borrowed
too much from the future. If these assumptions fail, the stock market would
collapse and housing prices would decline.

We could head towards an equilibrium, but that would require an economic and
social paradigm shift and lots of near to intermediate pain for a lot of
people. Paradigm shifts rarely happen and when they do, it's because of
extreme circumstances causing a lot of societal pain.

It's like we are on a runaway train that's about to crash but we are too
afraid to jump because jumping could mean death.

~~~
dnautics
> The dominant 20th century economic and social model is based on constant
> population and consumption growth.

This. It's probably worth reiterating just how fundamental this is: the
necessity of growth is built in, fundamentally to the way that the dollar (and
the euro, then yen, etc) itself works.

I'm not convinced that punting on decisions has to be as bad as a crash. Japan
has failed to meet growth for a few decades, and the way they handled it,
there is just social malaise, an alienated generation, and excellent
melancholy anime.

~~~
growlist
Watching NHK World, parts of Japan look idyllic and make me want to retire
there, or even move there now. I watched a charming piece the other day about
an island whose inhabitants have amongst the highest life expectancy in the
world. A genuine community, shared activities and culture, lack of stress,
plenty of fruit and vegetables as well as little traffic seemed to be the
recipe. Perhaps the rest of the world could do with some of this so-called
stagnation!

~~~
dnautics
NHK World (my mother watches this) is definitely government propaganda. This
is not to say that Japan is a horrible place, it's generally nicer than the
US, but there's lots of societal malaise going over there. Also Japan sweeps a
lot of poverty and soft corruption problems under the rug.

------
m23khan
ever wondered why Poor countries tend to population increases whereas rich
countries with abundance of basic resources tend to have low/negative
population growth?

here is your answer:

[http://www.physicsoflife.pl/dict/calhoun's_experiment.html](http://www.physicsoflife.pl/dict/calhoun's_experiment.html)

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empath75
If only there were a large population of people literally risking their lives
to come here with their children to help us resolve this issue.

~~~
blancheneige
see my comment above. the job market these people are supposedly propping up
is going to get wiped out by automation in a few decades, thus only
exacerbating the problem.

