Posthaste: The world’s population explosion has been defused — but now there's a new time bomb

And the consequences of ignoring it are dire

Good morning,

For a long time now one of the world’s biggest worries has been that rapid population growth would bring on food shortages, widespread unemployment, depletion of natural resources and environmental destruction.

Just earlier this month, total world population passed 8 billion, reigniting these long-standing fears.

But David Bloom and Leo Zucker of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, writing for the International Monetary Fund, say the most formidable demographic challenge now facing the world is no longer population growth — it is aging.

“The spectre of a global population bomb has in reality been defused (or, rather, fizzled naturally,” wrote the pair.

The world’s rate of population growth has slowed in recent decades and is projected to continue slowing, they said. Even India which is expected to pass China to become the world’s most populous country in 2023 is forecast to have a population growth rate of 0.7 per cent between 2020 and 2040, half of its 2000 to 2020 rate and less than the global average of 0.8 per cent.

UN projections calculate that the number of countries experiencing annual population decline will increase from 41 in 2022 to 88 in 2050.

“What is fast becoming universal is that population aging is the most pervasive and dominant global demographic trend, owing to declining fertility, increasing longevity and the progression of large cohorts into older ages,” they said.

This is more than the baby boom bubble. People are living longer. Global life expectancy has risen from 34 years in 1913 to 72 years in 2022, a trajectory that is expected to continue upward. Meanwhile, between 1970 and 2020, fertility dropped in every country in the world, the authors said.

When the United Nations was established after the Second World War in 1945, there were seven times more children under 15 than people 65 and over. By 2050, these two groups will be about the same size.

“These shifts portend a colossal set of health, social and economic challenges in the coming decades. They also signal the heretofore unlikely prospect of widespread depopulation,” they said.

Bloom and Zucker said addressing the challenge will require changes to lifestyle behaviours and public and private investments, policy reforms and technological innovation.

But the consequences of ignoring it are dire: a dwindling workforce struggling to support  a growing number of retirees, an explosion of age-related illnesses, rising  health costs and a declining quality of life for the aged because of a lack of human, financial and institutional resources,  they said.

The bright side of demographic changes is that they are predictable so societies have some time to prepare.

And there are things that can be done. To prepare for the economic impact, investment initiatives should focus on sustaining economic growth despite declines in the share of the working population, said Bloom and Zucker. Training programs should be geared to increasing productivity of those already in the workforce and encouraging others to enter it such as mothers and older people.

Relaxed restrictions on immigration would also help fill the gaps in countries where the workforce is depleted by age.

“Africa, for example, has a surplus of young people searching for jobs while Europe, with an older population, has a plethora of jobs in search of workers,” wrote the pair.

Bloom and Zucker said the pandemic contained lessons that could help the world to prepare for this new challenge.

“The most obvious takeaway is the need for enhanced preparedness,” they said.

“As the world disposes of the population growth bomb and seeks to fortify itself against the explosion of population aging, these lessons suggest a pathway for rewiring the global approach to healthy aging.”

_____________________________________________________________

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.
_____________________________________________________________

Once nickel king for the world, Canada’s dominance in the metal has fallen over the years. In the 1960s Canada produced 80 per cent of the world’s nickel, with Sudbury, Ont. alone, churning out half of the global production between 1905 and 1966.

Today, Indonesia is the nickel powerhouse, accounting for 39 per cent of global supply in 2021, more than triple its nearest competitors, the Philippines, which produced 12.8 per cent, and Russia about 11 per cent. Canada’s share has shrank to six per cent, about the same as Australia’s. Still these last two countries were deemed big enough producers to be approached by Indonesia at the recent G20 summit with the idea of creating an OPEC-like cartel for the metal. Find out how that idea went over back home here.

___________________________________________________

  • The United Steelworkers union and the Canadian Labour Congress will hold a news conference in Ottawa to discuss concerns that a major Canadian retailer is failing to ensure that factories in its supply chain are meeting international human rights standards
  • Premier Danielle Smith will deliver a televised address to Albertans
  • Michael Pickup, auditor general of British Columbia, will deliver a report to the legislature with details about the annual audit of government’s summary financial statements and other financial matters of interest
  • The 19th edition of the Ontario Economic Summit will be held in Toronto. This year’s theme is Building Ontario’s Growth Agenda
  • Karina Gould, minister of families, children and social development, will be in Ottawa to announce the Community Services Recovery Fund National Funders selected to distribute funding to help a range of charities and non-profits adapt and modernize
  • Massey College in Toronto hosts a conference entitled “Responsible Economics: Are Canadian Fiscal and Monetary Policies Appropriately Aligned?”
  • REALiTy+, a real estate conference, will be hosted by the Ontario Real Estate Association in Toronto
  • Today’s Data: Canada retail sales, new housing price index
  • Earnings: Alimentation Couche-Tard, George Weston, Canadian Solar, Best Buy, HP, Nordstrom

___________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________

  • Home Capital — the mortgage lender bailed out by Buffett — is being bought by Smith Financial
  • Smith Financial’s deal for Home Capital shakes up alternative lending space
  • David Rosenberg: S&P 500 could drop as low as 2,500 before this bear market is finished
  • ‘Nobody wants that job’: Some businesses are turning to robots to solve labour shortage woes
  • here.
  • Deep discounts to be on offer Black Friday, Cyber Monday

Credit is not inherently good or bad in itself. It is how we choose to use it that makes it helpful or harmful, writes Sandra Fry for the Financial Post.

It can be a great tool but credit is not a right; it’s a privilege that is earned after proving you have a history of repaying your debt as agreed. This holiday shopping season, Fry has writes.

____________________________________________________

Today’s Posthaste was written by Pamela Heaven, @pamheaven, with additional reporting from The Canadian Press, Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg.

Have a story idea, pitch, embargoed report, or a suggestion for this newsletter? Email us at posthaste@postmedia.com, or hit reply to send us a note.