(cont'd from yesterday's post)
Russia is far from alone in its demographic winter. The rate at which babies are born now is generally below replacement rate (2.1 per woman) in the West. Because relatively high birth rates in the rest of the world will persist for a while, the world's population will keep growing until around 2050 and then decline.
Many people have the impression that population is growing out of control, as Elon Musk mentioned. It's the zombie myth that should die. Inevitable, massive famines were predicted many years ago, based on the belief that earth couldn't produce enough food. But they were wildly off base. Human beings are creative and inventive - they are not eating machines. We found effective ways to increase productivity.
Today the West has a robust system to finance the lives of the retired elderly. But that probably can't last if there are far fewer workers in the declining society to support the system and far more elderly.
By 2050, Japan, Germany, Italy and others are expected to have a ratio of 1.5 workers per one elderly retired person. There won't be a lot of luxuries for the retired unless they provide their own. Even in Thailand (not a nation of the West) the expected number in 2050 is 1.7 workers.
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