Aging Demography and Contemporary Superpowers

This December, 2003 Nova interview with Paul Hewitt, the then-deputy commissioner for policy at the Social Security Administration gives some fascinating insight to developing global demographic changes. It begins by illuminating what's going on in Japan, presently the world's oldest nation. This recap is great because it spells out why there's an age shift, what factors contribute specifically to Japan's age situation and some long-term implications.

Japan is currently the "oldest" country in the world. In 1950, it was one of the "youngest" countries in the world; it had a median age of 22. Now its median age is 41, and by 2025 it will be approaching 50. What's happened in Japan is a combination of low immigration and birthrates that are more than one third below the "replacement level"—that is, the number of births a society needs to have enough children to replace the people who die.

As a consequence, you get a demographic structure where there are fewer and fewer children as a percentage of the total population, and the median age rises. And, of course, the senior population in Japan is also soaring, because the Japanese enjoy the highest life expectancy in the world.

The interview then goes on to discuss global ramifications, economic, political and environmental. Here are some highlights:

The demographic shift is now set in concrete. It's coming, and it's going to change everything. For one thing, we're going to see the decline of Europe and Japan as economic and political powers. They will become cauldrons of permanent economic and fiscal crisis. Anybody who's looked at the news over the past year knows that it's been a period of constant pension reform in these countries. We have entered what is going to be a constant cycle now, a constant drumbeat of reforms.

These fiscal crises have geopolitical consequences. Europe already is too broke to help govern the state of the world, to do many things that vital and powerful countries do. This financial crisis will become more consequential for America for as far into the future as we can project, because we know that our key trading partners, for all intents and purposes, are finished as economic and military powers.

Wow, he's certainly confident in his assessment. What does he have, a crystal ball? Nope, just the fairly immutable factors of demography -- they can't foresee significant disasters like hurricanes, plagues or wars, but... other than those outliers, the numbers are fairly consistent and set in stone, giving a prognosticator a great foundation from which to expound.