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Young and In Trouble
This map, from Pew researcher Conrad Hackett, tells an interesting story:
The median age in the U.S., he points out, is 37. The vast swath of green in central Africa — ground zero of the Ebola epidemic — is the youngest.
Meanwhile, the next youngest place on earth is Afghanistan, where the median age is 18.1.
The rest of the world is conveniently mapped here — but, SPOILER ALERT! — you’re in the old part. Not the oldest — that’s Canada and Europe. But old.
Two interesting data points, one worrying, one simply baffling:
Worrying: Places in trouble — where disease and civil war and extreme politics are the order of the day — are the youngest.
Baffling: China and the U.S. are about even in the median age department. But, of course, China has almost quadruple the population of the United States. Which suggests that the widely quoted insight, “China will get old before it gets rich,” may be correct. But we’ll be getting old along with them. Looking at the map, though, it’s hard to spot another country — maybe Brazil (median age: 30.7) or India (median age: 27) — that’s showing economic growth and has a young population to fuel its continued expansion. So here’s what’s baffling: where, in the future, will the growth come from?
Published in General
The problem with Japan is that it’s simply a geographically small country thus making real estate, education, and even food costs exorbitantly high- the old supply and demand theory. No other city in the world reminds me more of NYC than Tokyo.
Having “lots of babies” is fine if you can afford to bring them up properly.
Spain, Italy, France are having fewer children because of inflation. Period. Want a higher population growth rate? Start voting for economically sound policies that enable people to afford them.
It’s relative, James. Chinese women are better educated, on average, than African women (or Indian women). And short life spans means less time to have babies – iow, the population ‘turn over’ may be faster as well.
Every place my parents were stationed in Africa is “green.” If you think that the worst countries in Central or South America is poor, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Chinese women are better educated, but so are Chinese men; China having four times the GDP/ capita makes a difference. The adult illiteracy rate for Chinese men is 5%, while women clock in at 13%. In India, the figures are closer to 25% and 50%. India has more women in prominent positions, both political (including President and Prime Minister) and outside. China doesn’t have anything like that, the hated Madam Mao being the closet example.
Just as in Europe it’s the misogynist Russians who avoid breeding, in Asia it’s the guys who maintain the highest rates of sex-selective abortions. My view may be biased by the fact that in a job I ended up not taking I’d have had a female boss in India, while the Chinese law firm I worked at had no prominent women, but I think I have stats to support it.
A Night In Tunisia?