Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Careful with That Long-Term Planning:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_06_12-2005_06_18.shtml#1118853960
[1]Robert Samuelson writes, in the Washington Post:
Europe as we know it is slowly going out of business. . . . It's
hard to be a great power if your population is shriveling. Europe's
birthrates have dropped well below the replacement rate of 2.1
children for each woman of childbearing age. For Western Europe as
a whole, the rate is 1.5. It's 1.4 in Germany and 1.3 in Italy. In
a century -- if these rates continue -- there won't be many Germans
in Germany or Italians in Italy. Even assuming some increase in
birthrates and continued immigration, Western Europe's population
grows dramatically grayer, projects the U.S. Census Bureau. Now
about one-sixth of the population is 65 and older. By 2030 that
would be one-fourth, and by 2050 almost one-third. . . .
There's much to Mr. Samuelson's article, which may well be generally
correct. But I think it's something of a mistake to make demographic
predictions for what happens "in a century" "if these rates continue,"
or even in 2050. I doubt that a century ago we could have anticipated
the demographics of Europe in 2005; I doubt that 45 years ago we could
have anticipated the demographics of the U.S. in 2005; I doubt that
today we can anticipate the demographics of Europe in 2105 or even
2050. I doubt, for instance, that someone 100 or even 45 years ago
could have guessed Italy, seat of the Papacy, would have such a low
birth rate.
Too much depends on shifts in culture, immigration, economics, and to
some extent medicine. Some things one can plan on with somewhat more
confidence: People who are 30 today will be 75 in 2050, and barring a
major war, plague, massive emigration, or massive immigration of older
people one can make a good guess about how many of these 75-year-olds
there'll be in 2050. (Immigration, I suspect, is the main variable,
but one can have a decent idea of how many will immigrate in the next
10 years, and past that we're talking about immigration of
40-to-75-year-olds, which I suspect is rarer than immigration of
younger people.)
But birth rates and rates of immigration of young people are, I think,
much harder to estimate. And it seems to me a mistake to just assume
that things will stay more or less the same over that long a timespan.
They rarely do.
I've enabled comments.
References
1.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061401340.html
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