POPULATION, DEMOGRAPHY, AND POLITICAL ECONOMY

World Population is About to Peak

Adjusting to the Great Transition (Part 1)

Annual global population growth has slowed and begun to decline. Given the best current projections, the “exponential growth” feared forty years ago has crossed the kink, making it an “S-curve” stabilizing in the middle of this century and beginning a slow decline. On the global level, the overall trend is for the human population to peak in 2086 at 10.4 billion, and then begin to drop.

We are well into a “great transition” that mirrors, on a much greater scale and in a much shorter time, the transition from pre-agricultural to agricultural societies around the world.

The Great Transition

The population of the world grew less in the twelve thousand years prior to 1950 than it has in the past fifty years. The human population only reached its first 100 million somewhere in the second millennium BCE, and then half a billion in 1600. The first billion arrived in the early nineteenth century. In my lifetime, the population has grown by roughly one billion people every twelve years: 2.5 billion in 1950, four billion in 1975, five billion in 1987, six billion in 1999, and eight billion in 2023.

The speed and distribution of the population change are reshaping the world in our lifetimes.

The Demographic Transition

This demographic transition is a result of economic development. As a rule, wealthy families have fewer children. With advancements in medical care and public health the knowledge that a child will survive to adulthood, helping to replace and support her parents, means there is no reason for the “insurance policy” of larger families.

The rise of welfare states, where the wealth produced by the children of the whole nation is taxed, assembled, and distributed by the state to the older population as a class, further encourages this trend.

With development also comes a change in social roles. Women, as they gain rights, education, and opportunities to pursue other careers, can (and often do) choose to stop focusing on the role of “baby makers” and play a wide range of roles in the new economy. When they do, economic development further increases. The trend spirals into one where women are accepted as people with full control over their own bodies and fertility, producing wealth in various forms in keeping with their skills and interests.

This transition from large families to small, and for women as second-class citizens to equal partners, begins at different points among countries. The path to development began in Western Europe with the industrial revolution of the 19th century, but the change has become global. Whether in the United States, China, or Saudi Arabia, the trend applies to all. Despite different starting points, the transition is universal. Religion and culture yield to economics.

The Distribution of the Transition

Of course, the global figures conceal important differences between regions. Because the transition started later in some countries than others, the effect has been to shift the global population from the first to embrace modernity to the countries which were last to begin.

Regionally, this means the greatest economic resource — people — resides in some of the most recently-developed countries. Other countries, enormous on the map, do not have an economic potential to match their physical dimensions. Russia, for example, crosses thirteen time zones. But population matters more. Most Russians reside west of the Urals. When we look at its population, Russia is already a second-class country.

This has geopolitical consequences. Looking at a map, the Ukraine War should have ended in weeks. Russia’s territory dwarfs Ukraine, and even overwhelms the rest of Europe. Compared in terms of population, however, Ukraine is small but not insignificant. The populations of the countries of Western Europe (and NATO) dwarf the Russian Federation. Given its disadvantages in population, all that continues to make Russia economically significant is its production of oil and gas. The market for those products is on the way out as the world makes the transition to a post-carbon economy. Any advantages it might have had due to its science and technology are disappearing as the past several decades of brain drain have accelerated in light of the war.

The value of a natural resource depends on the degree to which a resource is exploited and the alternative resources available. Russia is making a transition from being “a gas station with an Army” to a “closed gas station that can’t maintain its Army.” And without its military, Russia is nothing.

To some degree, a reaction to this fact has prompted some of the extreme ideology and military adventurism we see in the Russian Federation today. If Russia doesn’t expand its population and influence now, it never will. Vladimir Putin likes to think of himself as this century’s “Vladimir the Great.” But given the demographic realities (which Russia has been attempting to reverse, without success), he is more likely to go down in history as the dictator associated with his empire’s final decline.

In contrast, China and India can’t help but be two of the great powers in the second half of this century — if they can maintain political and economic stability.

Projections of global population distribution at the end of this century are even more staggering. The United States will remain a great power — especially if it opens itself up to immigration. But it will only be one of many, and the majority of great powers will be in what was once called the “Third World”.

The Shift of Working Age Populations

Until recently, the world’s dominant economic powers have benefited from large working-age populations. In the less-developed world, large families and young populations were left with limited resources that were diverted to raising children. This cycle curbed economic opportunity.

The demographic transition, and its timing among countries, has reversed this cycle. Since the most developed countries started and ended the demographic transition first, they will be the first to be dominated by their elderly population. By 2013, a quarter of the population of Japan was 65 or older. Western Europe is following, with new record populations of the elderly emerging. South Korea, Britain, and Eastern Europe will be next.

China is learning that its one-child policy is not reversible. Despite changes at the level of government policy, encouraging women who have sampled relative independence to have more children has failed. China’s economic success has led to India surpassing China’s population this year.

By mid-century, India will have the largest working-age population in the world. The countries of Southeast Asia (except South Korea, which is already passing its prime) will join it. Africa will follow. In contrast, by the end of the century Russia’s overall population (including its elderly) is projected to be between that of Kenya and Iraq.

Demography is Destiny

A fundamental law of political economy is “demography is destiny.” By the middle of this century (only some twenty-five years away, the distance from our time to 9/11), people age 65 and older will make up nearly 40 percent of the population in some parts of East Asia and Europe. This is — almost twice the share of older adults today in Florida. These retirees (assuming they will be allowed to retire) will be dependent on a shrinking number of workers to support them.

As the transition continues, the population of the world will shift almost entirely to the countries of Asia and Africa. In 2100, when current trends continue, the only G7 (the club of large developed economies) states remaining in the top ten for population will be the United States.

A constant topic for those who follow world politics is what it means to be a “great power,” and who qualifies. However the individual countries decide to deal with the economic impact of demographic change, there will be a change at the top of the global pecking order. The European Union is, in part, an attempt to deal with the fact that as individuals few of its members will still be considered great powers in fifty years. (The United Kingdom, by leaving the Union, has guaranteed that it will join the ranks of the irrelevant.)

Power is a tricky concept. It generally refers to the ability to get what you want, even if others don’t want you to have it. Unlike wealth, which appears to be measurable in terms of dollars and natural resources, there is no single index to measure and compare power — not for individuals, and not for countries. It’s too context-dependent. In addition, since power is relational it is never absolute: it is never enough to be powerful — one must be more powerful than the potential opposition.

No matter how we look at it, the transition in populations as the world moves from pre-developed to post-developed is as much as anything a psychological shock. Europe, once the home to world-spanning empires, has to adjust to the fact that it is turning into a backwater of the international system. Countries that have built their status on pillage will have to cope with the fact those countries that were once subject peoples have eclipsed their former rulers–and they will want reparations. (I shudder to think how bare the British Museum will be in 2150.) China is already speaking about correcting the perceived damage from the “century of humiliation.”

The United States will have to face its own limitations. It will no longer be able to assume that its version of a “rules-based international order” will be based on American notions of justice and responsibility. It will have a seat at the table, but it will not be able to dictate outcomes.

It will be a completely new world. Our social, political, and economic assumptions will all have to be revised. If you are interested in some informed speculation about where we go from here, I recommend you read part 2. Suffice it to say, our old answers will no longer work. Our old relationships will no longer exist. And you have a voice in where we go from here.