Demography does not dictate any nation’s destiny, but it shapes every nation’s trajectory, so attention must be paid to Nicholas Eberstadt. He knows things that should occasion some American worries, but also knows more important things that should assuage some worries regarding Russia and China.
Writing in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs (“With Great Demographics Comes Great Power”), Eberstadt, of the American Enterprise Institute, warns of “negative demographic trends now eating away at the foundations of U.S. power.” America is the third-most populous nation, and between 1990 and 2015 generated almost all the population growth of what the U.N. calls the more developed regions. From 1950 to 2015, it acquired almost 50 million immigrants — “nearly half the developed world’s net immigration.” Between the mid-1980s and the 2008 financial crisis, America was “the only rich country with replacement level fertility” (2.1 children per woman).
So, by 2040, when the U.S. population is around 380 million, its population will be younger than that of almost any other rich democracy, and the working-age population will still be expanding.
Russia’s and China’s problems are more intractable.
Vladimir Putin is a strongman ruling a shriveling country. Regarding population and human capital, Russia seems to be, Eberstadt says, in “all but irremediable decline.” In 2016, males 15 years old had a life expectancy shorter than their Haitian counterparts, and 15-year-old females’ life expectancy was only slightly better than those in the least developed countries. With a population of 145 million, Russia has less privately held wealth than do the 10 million Swedes.
