Moving back from all this hateful propaganda bs to the actual numbers on how the bigger powers are doing…
They say demography is destiny. One factor that’s very likely to shape how these power blocs do over coming decades is how much their population is aging, since a large share of those over 65 tend to have retired from work (although this is obviously a bit flawed as a measure, since many over 65s do continue in work paid or unpaid, especially doing unpaid childcare for family, retirement ages vary widely etc, it still provides a general picture); this is called the aged age dependency ratio
(2021 data)
EU: 32.5%
USA: 26.3%
Russia: 24.4%
China 17.7%
India 10.0%
So that’s an aged population in the EU, two aging populations in the USA and Russia, a relatively young population in China and the youngest in India.
Another measure of this is the median age:
(2020 data)
EU 44.0
Russia 40.3
USA 38.5
China 38.4
Global average 31.0
India 28.7
Quite a different picture regarding the relative positions of Russia, the USA and China according to this measure, although I’d argue this one is a little less economically significant. A key reason for the difference would likely be that USA life expectancy has been higher in recent decades, so more people are still alive over 65.
As far as forecasting how much these may change, big relevant factors would be life expectancy (already run through above), fertility rate, immigration and emigration. I’ve looked at life expectancy already, but here’s the fertility rate data:
(2021 data)
Global average: 2.27
India: 2.03
USA: 1.66
EU: 1.5
Russia: 1.49
China: 1.16
So we’d expect China to age fastest based on this, as has frequently been commented on in the past.
Got to go now or I’d add in the migration data (although I think that’s a bit less significant)
