Eastern Europe has been losing people for decades. It has also been getting richer. Does that make the demographic doomers wrong—or merely premature in their predictions?
It is quite obvious that South Korea and Poland greatly capitalised on their demographic dividend. Their major growth period corresponds with the window of time after fertility fell but strong cohorts were not yet entering retirement age. Dependency ratios went down, the economy was awash in high human capital workers. (If Poland wasn't suffering from the aftershocks of communism and didn't lose so many people to emigration because the economy was unable to fully utilise them, it would have been much richer and stronger today).
Something to add that wasn't mentioned in the article is that once population starts shrinking capital per worker goes up. Japanese having a higher productivity per worker makes sense as there is more money, tools, resources available. A nuclear plant or a car factory will still be usable even 50 years from now, but the working population might be just a fraction of what it was when those things were built.
Yes, and the opposite happens with a growing population. When Trudeau flooded Canada with immigrants, a number of bank economists noted that Canada entered a population trap where there was not enough capital to deploy the population productively.
A falling population should result in workers being paid better and allocated to higher value businesses. Unfortunately the low productivity businesses scream for immigrants, as if it’s a national emergency when they can’t find low wage workers.
Vienna has the average age heavily 45+ now, so it feels, it is sort of strange to see teenagers, as if an endangered species. The few teenagers strangely lack the old time rebellious energy, like, maybe they feel like they have too many oldsters to try to rebel against.
The plus side is the "pleasantly sleepy", if one avoids the few immigration hotspots, one sees very little antisocial behaviour, because 45+ people just don't do that. Also by 45 people generally learn how not to be poor and all that.
The price of it is incredible boredom. None of the radio channels are worth listening to, there is just no interesting music at all. At the summer, going to a beach, there is either no music or boring radio music. No one ever is dancing. They are not even drinking cocktails at the beach ffs. I mean it is theoretically not hard to make an average European beach feel a bit like Rio, all you need is a DJ and cocktails and a few people who start dancing. But it does not work at all if people are too old.
It is quite obvious that South Korea and Poland greatly capitalised on their demographic dividend. Their major growth period corresponds with the window of time after fertility fell but strong cohorts were not yet entering retirement age. Dependency ratios went down, the economy was awash in high human capital workers. (If Poland wasn't suffering from the aftershocks of communism and didn't lose so many people to emigration because the economy was unable to fully utilise them, it would have been much richer and stronger today).
But the chickens are coming home to roost now.
Something to add that wasn't mentioned in the article is that once population starts shrinking capital per worker goes up. Japanese having a higher productivity per worker makes sense as there is more money, tools, resources available. A nuclear plant or a car factory will still be usable even 50 years from now, but the working population might be just a fraction of what it was when those things were built.
Yes, and the opposite happens with a growing population. When Trudeau flooded Canada with immigrants, a number of bank economists noted that Canada entered a population trap where there was not enough capital to deploy the population productively.
A falling population should result in workers being paid better and allocated to higher value businesses. Unfortunately the low productivity businesses scream for immigrants, as if it’s a national emergency when they can’t find low wage workers.
Vienna has the average age heavily 45+ now, so it feels, it is sort of strange to see teenagers, as if an endangered species. The few teenagers strangely lack the old time rebellious energy, like, maybe they feel like they have too many oldsters to try to rebel against.
The plus side is the "pleasantly sleepy", if one avoids the few immigration hotspots, one sees very little antisocial behaviour, because 45+ people just don't do that. Also by 45 people generally learn how not to be poor and all that.
The price of it is incredible boredom. None of the radio channels are worth listening to, there is just no interesting music at all. At the summer, going to a beach, there is either no music or boring radio music. No one ever is dancing. They are not even drinking cocktails at the beach ffs. I mean it is theoretically not hard to make an average European beach feel a bit like Rio, all you need is a DJ and cocktails and a few people who start dancing. But it does not work at all if people are too old.