While the world wrestles with a deadly pandemic, another challenge is sneaking up on the human race: population aging.

As we transition from an exploding species to a shrinking one, economies around the world will start to feel the pressure trib.al/MawBWAc
Japan is the canary in the coal mine here.

Although its birth rate is not as low as that of many other rich countries, it's been low for a long time. That’s why Japan is now the world’s oldest major economy trib.al/MawBWAc
On one hand, Japan demonstrates why a shrinking population doesn’t automatically impoverish a country.

Its population is slowly declining, yet income per capita has continued to rise as productivity grows and more women enter the workforce trib.al/MawBWAc
But pronounced aging has an economic cost.

Every year, a dwindling pool of working-age Japanese people is forced to support an expanding pool of gray-haired consumers. This is why Japan’s living standards are falling trib.al/MawBWAc
In concrete terms, this means:

👵🏽More adults forced into eldercare
💰More taxes to pay for pensions and health care
🛌🏽Lower living standards for the elderly trib.al/MawBWAc
There’s also another potential cost to severe aging: macroeconomic dysfunction.

As Japan’s population has leveled off, its economy has slipped into a seemingly permanent state of deflation or near-deflation trib.al/MawBWAc
Aging might also have another corrosive effect on productivity.

In countries like Japan which promotes people by seniority, a deficit of dynamic, fresh-thinking young people might make companies less nimble and less open to new ideas trib.al/MawBWAc
Countries try to compensate for population aging:

✔️Old people work longer
✔️More parents go to work
✔️Countries invest in automation

But unless robots get much better, there’s probably a limit to how much these measures can fight the graying tide trib.al/MawBWAc
For now, the global population continues to grow.

If countries skewing older can overcome political hurdles, they can keep growing by taking in young working-age immigrants trib.al/MawBWAc
Immigration is how these countries have all grown faster than Japan, and it’s why Japan itself has been ramping up immigration:

🇨🇦Canada
🇺🇸The U.S.
🇬🇧The U.K.
🇩🇪Germany
trib.al/MawBWAc
But this solution will be temporary, because the transition to small families is happening all over the world.

Fertility in Muslim countries has crashed in the last two decades. Even sub-Saharan Africa is seeing its numbers fall faster and faster trib.al/MawBWAc
This doesn’t mean that the globe is headed for a childless future.

But it does mean that the window is closing for a few developed countries to continue to meet the challenges of population aging trib.al/MawBWAc

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More from @bopinion

20 Oct
In the wake of the global pandemic, the movie industry is facing an existential crisis.

Whether due to emergency decree or fear of infection, people are staying home and out of the cinemas in droves trib.al/qGhW4JI
Hollywood’s response has been to postpone “tentpole” movies to 2021, including:

🎬James Bond: No Time to Die
🎬Dune
🎬Black Widow trib.al/qGhW4JI
There’s a predictable negative synergy: If there are no big movies, few people will go.
If few people go, the big movies will be postponed even further

Small wonder that the world’s largest theater operator might soon file for bankruptcy trib.al/qGhW4JI
Read 11 tweets
19 Oct
India’s Covid-19 economic gloom turned into despair this week.

Its per capita GDP may be lower for 2020 than in neighboring Bangladesh, the smaller nation it helped liberate in 1971 by going to war with Pakistan trib.al/hdficHl
“Any emerging economy doing well is good news,” @kaushikcbasu, a former World Bank chief economist, tweeted after the IMF updated its outlook.

“But it's shocking that India, which had a lead of 25% five years ago, is now trailing” trib.al/hdficHl Image
Ever since it began opening up the economy in the 1990s, India’s dream has been to emulate China’s rapid expansion.

After three decades of persevering with that campaign, slipping behind Bangladesh hurts its global image trib.al/hdficHl Image
Read 11 tweets
18 Oct
Of all the world’s billionaires, with the exception of those from China, it’s the French who have just enjoyed their most lucrative decade trib.al/VDVsgAM
LVMH boss Bernard Armault and his ilk saw their wealth balloon 439% to $443 billion between 2009 and mid-2020, fueled by Asian hunger for French luxury goods and a global real estate boom trib.al/VDVsgAM
Here’s how those billionaires stack up globally:

🇨🇳China: 1,100% increase in wealth
🇫🇷France: 439%
🇨🇦Canada: 238%
🇺🇸U.S.: 170%
🇮🇳India: 90% trib.al/VDVsgAM
Read 11 tweets
17 Oct
Before he had Covid-19, Brendan Delaney, the 57-year-old chair of medical informatics and decision making at Imperial College, could cycle 150 miles in a day.

Covid changed that, but not because he had a severe case of the disease trib.al/nMhJr0P
Like many healthy people, he figured his symptoms, a mild fever and a cough, would pass soon enough. Instead, he experienced debilitating aftereffects, such as:

🥱Fatigue
🫁Breathlessness
🌡️Fevers

Seven months later, he is still not back to normal trib.al/nMhJr0P
He can’t imagine getting back on a bike and says that if he pushes himself too hard, he ends up in bed with a fever for a couple of days.

He considers himself lucky that he’s able to work. Many other long Covid sufferers cannot trib.al/nMhJr0P
Read 14 tweets
16 Oct
Quickly vaccinating billions of people around the globe against Covid-19 is going to be an endeavor like no other in human history.

Thousands of online gamers could help expedite the process trib.al/uXPmeIl
Some of the leading contenders — mRNA vaccines — have a very short shelf life:

🥶💉They have to be stored and shipped at temperatures as low as minus 80 degrees Celsius (minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit) trib.al/uXPmeIl
These mRNA vaccines are promising because they can be created and manufactured quickly.

There’s just one catch: Once thawed, these vaccines need to be used immediately trib.al/uXPmeIl
Read 12 tweets
15 Oct
In late June, @MaxNisen highlighted what he deemed a "horrifying" chart showing massive growth in new infections in the U.S. relative to the European Union.

Now, almost four months later, that chart remains terrifying, in a completely different way trib.al/hQxu8YS
For the first time since March, the EU is reporting more new Covid-19 cases on a per-capita basis than the U.S., reflecting a second wave of virus outbreaks.

That’s even as U.S. case rates climb from an alarmingly high post-summer plateau trib.al/hQxu8YS Image
Both regions are at a dangerous moment:

❄️The virus will be harder to control in winter as people congregate indoors
🙅🏻‍♀️Resistance to renewed restrictions may make them harder to impose and enforce trib.al/hQxu8YS Image
Read 9 tweets

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