Asian countries are quite diverse in the economics demographics.
Japan's already rich, but aging. Japan is stuck in the 1980s in many regards including soft power.
China's not aging yet, but it's on Japan's trajectory. Bad with soft power.
South Korea is similar to China, but it's already rich. Japanese may disagree but South Korea is arguably the strongest in soft power in Asia.
Vietnam has a young population, but it is still developing and might be subject to the middle income trap if automation for otherwise low cost labor ramps up.
Taiwan has its silicon shield, but software engineers are paid pretty bad. There just aren't many high paying salaries there. It also has a big welfare system despite not having many job/career opportunities.
Hong Kong there is an exodus of young people and white collar people.
Japan probably has the most affordable housing in the list, relative to the average income. I'm currently living here. I've been looking at real estate in Taiwan, but it just makes zero sense. It makes Manhattan condos seem reasonable given how old and units in Taiwan are.
Yes they definitely are, and faster than almost any other country. China's median age is already well into middle age, and their birth rate has peaked and is falling quickly.
I know what you mean, but I find the notion that the Chinese are ageing faster than everyone else amusing.
[1] citation needed, and given Asian fertility rates, highly questionable
My dad spent his career on maternal health and family planning issues. He's in the group of folks that's the reason that Bangladesh's fertility rate has fallen from almost 7 per women in 1975 to just over 2 today. There was a generational effort in Asia to basically change the culture to discourage having large families. The notion that national prosperity is associated with population control was deeply impressed upon Asians--to the point where my dad thought it a little weird when my wife and I decided to have three kids. I suspect that's part of the reason why fertility rates in east asian countries have dropped not only below replacement rates, but down to under 1 in several countries.
If this is still true, the flip of that is that as countries climb up the relative ladder and women have greater access to education, expect to see population #s dwindle without having really any levers to affect it otherwise.
I'd be very interested to see this research. I have a hard time believing that anything positive will be done about the birth rate if this is what they are teaching at a masters level.
I also think the cost of having children is completely overblown, people just simply aren't willing to make the sacrifices.
TLDR The opportunity cost of having children in affluent society is too damn high.
"It’s worth noting that a 2018 poll of individuals who have chosen not have children found the most frequently-cited reason for their decision was a desire for more leisure time."
... "more leisure time" is a link to a NY Times article[1]. The chart in that article shows economic reasons[2] collectively cited much more frequently than a desire for more leisure time.
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/upshot/americans-are-havi...
2. "Child care is too expensive", "worried about the economy", "can't afford more children", and "waited because of financial instability" all score more highly than "want more leisure time". These are all economic[3] reasons. "Want more time for the children I have" could be seen as economic also, given that the most likely reason for not spending as much time as desired is having to have employment.
The list goes on: "not enough paid family leave" and "no paid family leave" are the next highest-scoring reasons. Also economic reasons.
To me this chart cumulatively reads as "I/we are forced to spend more time than I/we desire in pursuit of income/financial security, with unsatisfactory results." It confirms that "economic reasons"[3] is the primary cause of low fertility.
3. "Economic" comes from oikos and noum-, "household" and "budgeting/regulation", so all of the reasons above are economic reasons.
It seems to be such a multi-factor problem that I don't see any governments managing to come up with "solutions" to it, especially as most that are put forward are single factor and rarely amount to much more than fiddling around the edges.
educators in the WEIRD schools teach this, for sure. They also teach a lot of other things that have not stood the test of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNvdBRjRno8 is a good intro
Disunited Nations is his most recent published book: https://zeihan.com/disunited-nations/ (a new one is coming out in June)
In particular, it is ridiculous to talk about long-term demographics in a vacuum. We are no longer in the phase of human history where you need millions of young people to be working hard 70 hour weeks. Economic productivity is no longer a function strictly of animal (human) muscle mass. We are, just barely, in the age of automation.
From Disunited Nations:
"Germany will decline as the most powerful country in Europe, with France taking its place. Every country should prepare for the collapse of China..."
LOL
That statement from Zeihan is absolutely hilarious to anyone with a passing knowledge of 21st century history and ongoing trends...
Benjamin Norton on Latin American geopolitics - https://multipolarista.com/
Pepe Escobar has fantastic & entertaining insights on the Eurasia region if you can stomach the occasionally pro-Russian hagiography - his main site (+ other great analysts) is down to DDOS right now - http://thecradle.co/
The difference between these guys and Zeihan, is these guys are actually on the ground (or spent their careers on the ground), whereas Zeihan is a desk jockey that makes pretty charts and ridiculous, baseless extrapolations from them.
Which has nothing to do with its demographics, and everything to do with its politics.
... Also, Ukraine is facing the exact same demographic stresses as Russia. Also, demographics don't matter as much as, broadly speaking, industrial capacity in modern wars. They aren't about throwing an entire generation of men into million-casualty-offensives over no-man's-land.
Already right now, half our economy is made-up, bullshit jobs to produce bullshit items, keeping each other busy on the back of monetary stimulation.
I really appreciated this insight, that governments had (quote) an understanding that if you just leave young people to be, they will go and get married. They will have children. They will be able to have a family and there will be no problem there. You just need to let them go ahead and do that, which is a very naive way of looking at it
The next 100 years is going to be very interesting for demographics. I've heard it said that China needs to grow rich before it grows old, and that saying could apply to many Asian countries right now. Fully expect to see much more support for having a family in countries across the world.