Tag: demographics

Demographics: Another Problem for China

Commentary As Communist Party leader Xi Jinping begins an unprecedented third term with a team of loyalists, China faces an array of economic problems—financial strains, a collapse of the property sector, and the ill effects of COVID-19 lockdowns, just to name three currently attention-grabbing headlines. One problem that gets little media attention but nonetheless may…


Unserious Leadership in a Serious Time

Commentary We live in a deeply serious time with deeply unserious leaders. Historian Niall Ferguson has written that the “extreme violence of the twentieth century” was precipitated by three preconditions: “ethnic conflict, economic volatility, and empires in decline.” It is difficult not to see such preconditions repeating themselves in this century. The West is currently…


Demographers Warn of Impending Population Collapse

Amid the deluge of dire predictions that the human population will rise exponentially, deplete the earth’s resources, and overheat the planet, two recent demographic studies predict the opposite—that the number of people will peak within the next several decades and then begin a phase of steady, irreversible decline. In some places, including Japan, Russia, South…


Japan Recorded Record Low Births, Biggest Ever Population Drop in 2021

TOKYO—Japan recorded a record low number of births in 2021, prompting the biggest ever natural decline in the population, government data showed on Friday. There were 811,604 births last year, the fewest in health ministry data going back to 1899. Deaths climbed to 1,439,809, leading to an overall drop of 628,205 in the population. The…