We all know that the birth rate of infants suddenly decreases even worse in a way that has not been widely understood.
The birth rate that has been declining for decades has decreased even more during the Xinyuan epidemic.According to a report by James Poloro, a global economist in London, a London Bank of London, has continued to decline since then.The title of the report is: Baby birth rate falls: How bad will it be?(Sorry, there is no link.)
Polo Roy did not wait for the data of the United Nations and other official data collection agencies to summarize the data of statistical institutions from various countries, but instead collects data in person.Polorois wrote in my email that some data are not the final data, or all the data that is covered by the end of 2023. "Some data come from a very interesting corner of the government statistics office."
Although the final data may be slightly different, they are unlikely to change the information conveyed in the chart below. Compared with the data in the HSBC report, the table is slightly updated.Most countries that managed to obtain data in Popolroy, the total number of births in 2023 continued to decline sharply.The performance of the United States is better than most countries, down 1.9%.The Czech Republic, Ireland and Poland have declined 10%or more.
For Popolroy, the most "amazing" of South Korea is 8.1%, because the country's total fertility rate in 2022 is already the lowest in the world, 0.78.(Total fertility rate refers to the annual fertility rate of a woman in a life of a woman in the same age as the fertility rate of women in the same period, so she will have the number of children in her life. In the case of no immigration, keep a country for a long time.The total and fertility rate required for atrophy is 2.1.)
In South Korea, the low fertility rate has become a state of emergency. Experts said that if the fertility rate continues to decline, by the end of this century, the South Korean population may decrease by two -thirds.South Korean newspapers are full of reports of closing kindergartens, expanding childbirth bonuses, and reports that it is necessary to call for women to participate in a quota.
Polo Roy said that if South Korea's fertility rate can be reduced to such a point, it is believed that this situation may also be "reasonable", including the United States, which is still slightly higher than 1.6.The population of the United States is still growing slowly, mainly due to immigrants.
The reason why the birth rate of babies is difficult to fight is because its impact will intensify from generation to generation.The reduction of fertility of one generation will lead to a decrease in the number of women in the next generation.Decreased population may reduce the pressure on the environment, but the inverted population pyramid leads to too few young people who work to work and cannot support retired elderly people.
Politically, the best way to solve the low birth rate is to increase the birth rate.However, fertility policies such as fertility awards and free childcare have not achieved the expected results after trial.If policy makers cannot increase their birth rate, they will face a series of unpleasant choices: increasing taxes, increasing retirement age, cutting retirement and medical benefits of the elderly, or increasing immigration.
The last choice is to increase immigration and there are many favorable factors.It is beneficial to both accepting countries and sending countries.People who work abroad remit money at home.They may also bring back the idea of founding a new enterprise.Polorois said that although the scale of entrepreneurial culture in the Philippines is small, it is continuously growing. This culture seems to be inspired by Philippines working abroad.
The challenges faced by a low -birth rate are the integration of new immigrants from economic and social levels.This requires public support to invest in other aspects of housing, education and immigration.In the US immigration country, despite confusion in the southern border, its support for immigrants is still quite strong.But among the elderly in the United States, this support is relatively weak, as shown in the figure below:
Polo Roy believes that this chart may be good news.If young people today still support immigrants like now, this is not a certainty -then the United States (maybe other wealthy countries) will become easier and easier to accept new immigrants, which will improve the decline in birth rates.question.
I don't want to dilute the chaos of the current immigration problem.We need to do more work to prevent unauthorized entry and control the treatment of potential immigrants.However, Joevani Perry, director of the Global Immigration Center of the University of California Davis, told me that if more legal immigrants are allowed, it will alleviate the short -paying jobs such as agricultural, food services, architecture, and personal care.(I support the reorganization of such tasks to improve their productivity and salary, but even so, they may mainly attract immigrants from low -income countries.)
If the current trend continues, after a generation, when people review in 2024, they may want to know why Americans work so hard to refuse people instead of asking them to come in.
Peter Coy reports that commercial news has been for more than 40 years.You can contact him by emailing coy- [email protected], or follow him on Twitter :?@PeterCoy.
Translation: Jin Qijiao
