Demographics are a fascinating way of predicting future trends, opportunities, and threats.For example, we knew for the last 8 years that millennials would become the #1 buyer in the $6.07 trillion tech industry last year.
--> We also know that China will drop their population in half (1.41 billion to 633 million) by 2100 due to the disastrous One-Child Policy.
The average age is already 40.6 years old and they will be facing a similar economic fate as Japan because of demographics.
We are not only in the AI-race for the next 20 years, we are also in an immigration race as most of the world (minus Africa and some of the Middle East) are not at a 2.1 child replacement rate.
Far from it.
It would also behoove us (as global citizens) to encourage the economic and geopolitical development of Africa to handle the coming population boom.
--> Africa will double in population size by 2050 and the situation is a study in extreme contrast.
The continent is home to the world's most significant demographic "boom" while simultaneously navigating localized crises of violence, disease, and structural instability.
Africa’s population is "chronically young". Half of the citizens in sub-Saharan Africa are under 21 years old. About 12 million enter the labor market every year and only 3 million formal wage jobs are created annually.
This youth bulge can be a demographic dividend if educated and employed, but without opportunities, it becomes a primary driver of social instability and recruitment for extremist groups.
More challenges:
1. Over half of the low-income countries in the region are at high risk of debt distress, leaving little money for "human capital" (schools and hospitals).
2. Traditional foreign aid from the West (ie. USAID has cut upwards of 60% in past year) and China has been falling since the pandemic, forcing African nations to look toward "self-reliance" and diaspora philanthropy.
3. Severe droughts in East Africa have worsened food security, making children even more vulnerable to diseases they might otherwise survive.
--> Analysts tend to call demographics "destiny in slow motion."
Unlike economic forecasts or polling (which can shift with every tweet) demographic data is remarkably "sticky" because the people who will make up the workforce, the taxpayer base, and the buyer markets twenty years from now have, for the most part, already been born.
