Note: This video was recorded during Peter’s last hiking trip
Many countries are on the brink of crisis. No, I’m not talking about political issues or potential wars. Instead, I’m looking at the aging population crisis facing a number of countries around the globe. Let’s start with Japan.
Japan is the oldest country globally, with 10% of its population over 80, yet they’ve managed to mitigate the impact this has had. The Japanese have adopted policies that extend working lives, improve health care, and encourage younger generations to have children…and there are plenty of other countries who could take some lessons out of Japan’s playbook.
Italy and Germany are aging more rapidly and could put some strain on the European monetary union. China could very well face a civilization crashing event due to its inability to handle its older population with poor social security and weak health care system. Korea is also aging quickly, but I’m optimistic about their ability to innovate their way out of this pickle.
While there’s not a lot of positive in this one, those countries that are bit behind in the aging process will at least have some guinea pigs. And If anyone is looking for a career with solid job security, I suggest pursuing something in hospice or elderly care…
Hey, everybody. Hello from Lewis Creek. Today we’re going to talk about demographics, specifically old people. The stereotypical case is Japan, where today 10% of the population is over 80 and fully one quarter of the population is either retired or qualifies for retirement. They are by far the oldest country in the world. However, they saw this coming back in the 1980s after having a birth rate that had been really low for nearly a century.
And so they started extending working lives, better health care to make people keep their minds rather than fall into dementia, better child care. So the people who do want to have kids can try, and above all, ways to keep older folks at least engage part time within the workforce. All of that has allowed them to extend the useful working life of your average citizen, while also increasing the birth rate to a degree that they are no longer the fastest aging society in the world.
There are now, like 20 other countries that are aging faster, including Thailand, Korea, China, Italy, Germany, Spain, Poland. It’s not that these countries are past the point of no return, but it’s time for them to start thinking about what happens next. Because while they may have seen this coming decades ago. They haven’t done squat about it. A couple of countries to keep your eyes on.
Number one Italy. Here is a large country with an ancient population that’s getting older by the second. The oldest in Europe, and they’re in a monetary union with the rest of the Europeans. At some point, the additional outlays that are required to maintain an elderly population are going to crack the European system apart. Germany is just a couple of years behind Italy.
So we’re going to see the Germans go from a minute payer of Europe to a net pay. That changes everything about what makes Europe work. Another country to watch is China. Every time they update their data, it gets worse and they may well now have a demographic structure that’s not too far behind Italy. And this is a country that doesn’t have a social security or pension system worth knowing, or a decent health care system.
So when this goes, you basically had the Chinese lose their entire workforce in a very short period of time. I would expect that to be a civilization crashing event. And then finally there’s Korea, which is also aging very, very quickly. Maybe even just a touch faster than Italy. The reason I would say Watch Korea is if any country can figure out how to adapt to this, it’s the Koreans.
This is the country that when they decided to get into the supertanker business, didn’t bother building a supertanker drydock. First they built the supertanker in two halves, in two different drydock and then welded together. The Koreans have a habit of defying physics to make things happen. And if anyone can find a path out of this, it’s them.
