Demographic Trends Present Risks and Opportunities - Wilson Quarterly Summer 2024

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

• Demographic Trends Present Risks and Opportunities - Wilson Quarterly Summer 2024

  THIS IS AN UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT

  Hello, I'm John Milewski and this is Wilson Center NOW, a production of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. My guest today is Stephanie Bowen. Stephanie is editor of the award winning Wilson Quarterly.

  
  The Wilson Center's digital magazine. And as is our tradition, when a new issue hits the virtual stands, we have Stephanie drop by and talk to us about it. And she's joined by one of her collaborators on the issue, Lauren Herzer Risi, director of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program. Welcome to both of you. Thank you for joining us.

  
  Thanks. Thank you. So, Stephanie, the summer 2024 WQ, the great population shakeup. Tell us what the issue is about. Sure. It's it's about our shifting demographic trends and what we're seeing across the world and how those demographic trends are really something that we should be paying attention to. We thought for a long time about doing this. We had when the population hit 8 billion a bit ago, we started talking about it even before then.

  
  And finally we're able to bring something together that I think really is a nice collection of regional and subject matter pieces that paint a picture of how demographics really do impact foreign policy decisions. And Lauren, you know, normally stuffing Stephanie, I will have one of the authors on and we'll talk specifically about his or her piece. But she told me you played a larger role than the typical author for this issue that you were almost the coeditor along with her and you wrote the overview.

  
  So give us another preview, an additional preview of the types of things that are covered in this issue. Sure. Well, I mean, I think one of the things is, you know, the environmental change, the security program population has long been a focus of the program, looking at population, environment and security together. And one thing that we have found is that even though population demography is foundational to policy, it's not really well understood by policymakers.

  
  There's a lot of misperceptions around what constitutes population trends and and getting those sort of correcting those misperceptions is really going to be key to developing policies that provide security and health to populations moving forward. And so one of the things we wanted to do with this issue was was really bring to policymakers and the general public a better understanding of what is meant by demographic trends, why it matters for our health, for our security, for the environment, for economics, for trade.

  
  Right. How all of these pieces of of demography fit into our daily lives and and what that means for how we think about policies. You know, Stephanie, you know, I'm a big fan of your work and of the WQ, and I often rave about the the value of an issue of the WQ. You know, I'm a a news junkie and an avid reader and pound for pound.

  
  There's not a better investment of time than an issue of the Wilson Quarterly. And I think this issue in particular is so many dots are connected, so many challenging things to think about for anyone interested in life on planet Earth. So I'm not going to worry about trying to be too linear. And in this discussion, and I think the three of us can just sort of make connections and bring things up as we think of them.

  
  But I thought it might be fun to start with the article that you co-wrote. Could you tell us about what you focused on specifically as an author and not just an editor? Yeah. First of all, I wrote an I coauthored a piece with Tyler Marshall, who is a journalist who's reported from all over the world about the workforce that is needed as it relates to shifting global demographics and we ended up writing that because we really wanted to make sure this was covered and it wasn't one that was sourced through different means.

  
  And the more I read about it, the more excited I got to be a learning about this topic and be reporting on it and making sure that there was that it was part of the issue. You know, so a lot of and you'll see a lot of dots connected through the issue in this piece because what's happening in China with its aging and declining population is the opposite of what's happening in Africa with its growing and youthful population and how that impacts the workforce of the future.

  
  You know, we took a pretty narrow lens to see, okay, what does it mean With China's population aging and shrinking China, who's provided a lot of the global workforce? Then when you look at what can Africa, who has the biggest youth bulge, you know, can they fill the gap? So that was the lens that we looked at and they they can but it's going to be tough is the bottom line.

  
  But there are a lot of things that went went into it. And what there were many aspects of what how best to prepare the workforce of the future. I could tell you about them. There are a couple that really stood out to me as we were doing the research. I'd say, and this is something that I found has been increasingly talked about in general when you're talking about education and how to, you know, really how education systems should be, you know, changed really setting people up for lifelong learning, for being able to change and shift through time and not just go to school with one thing in mind for a, you know, a career in

  X that you'll do until you retire. But really being able to work in a rapidly evolving situation, which is the world technol 4G climate people. I mean, it's really everything is really shifting. And to set up to set up successful, you know, the future of the workforce to to make to make it most successful, it has to account for that and many other things.

  
  You know, the statistics on just how many times a person will change careers are stunning. How quickly that's changed. Anecdotally, I remember meeting an insurance executive in Boston who started in the mailroom and then rose to executive vice president level, and he was telling me his son had been in the workforce for five years and had changed jobs three times.

  And so this is the contrast that you're I think, Lauren, you were about to say something about this question of workforce. Now, I thought I heard let me ask you a question. And Lauren, when you know what Stephanie describes in the workforce becomes a microcosm of this bigger discussion where we're talking about countries that are aging rapidly or those who are experiencing a youthquake.

  
  And then I'm I'm guessing there are some that are hitting close to that fertility rate replacement level. Can you give us sort of a regional geography quick snapshot, Lauren, about where are the hotspots for aging populations versus those experiencing youth bulges? And are there any countries that are getting it just about right? Well, I mean, I think about 28% of the global population lives in countries whose population has peaked.

  
  And this includes Japan, Germany, China and Russia. I think the only reason the U.S. isn't on this list is because of immigration. But by 2054, they'll be an additional 38 countries whose populations have peaked. A lot of the growth is occurring in large countries like Indonesia. Stephanie mentioned sub-Saharan Africa. A lot of the countries across the Sahel are still rapidly growing.

  
  The Middle East is growing. Right. And so I think what is one of the reasons we wanted to bring this issue out now is because we are living in a different demographic moment than we've ever seen before. Right. And those changes are going to continue rapidly. And so, you know, all of the systems that we have in place today have been built to meet the needs of populations.

  
  And they've been pretty successful right now. In 1900, life expectancy was 31 years. Today, it's over 73. Right. So there have been significant advances. But will those systems still be able to meet the needs of populations as we see these changes occur and sometimes called the demographic divide in terms of which countries are growing or shrinking? And what does that mean for the global economy, for health, for, you know, prosperity?

  
  And so being able to. I think one of the things about this issue is that through the country and regional sort of focus pieces, you get the story of what this looks like in the ground or on the ground. But when you zoom out, you have to think about how all of these pieces fit together in terms of the global economy and and also in the context, like Stephanie said, of a global energy transition and climate impacts.

  
  And I write this it's not population on its own. It's how it fits into these broader trends. Now, that's one of the reasons I found this issue so compelling in that there's barely any topic you can think of that isn't touched upon by what we're talking about here. And I want to ask both of you sort of a general question.

  
  I'll apologize on how general it is, because I know generalizations are often, you know, just roadmaps to inaccuracy. But as I'm reading the issue and listening to both of you today, I'm wondering, in your opinion, does demography or demographic changes play anything close to a large enough role in public policy discussions around the globe? It's not an issue that you hear in a campaign cycle that people are talking about maybe indirectly when they talk about migration or things like that.

  
  But are we really ignoring this issue at our own peril? Should public policymakers in particular be more focused on these rapidly changing demographics? Go ahead, Stephanie, of how you flip a coin for that hot button. I think I think yes. I mean, I think they should be paying more attention and it's not necessarily and Lauren Graham, probably some this up maybe a little bit better, but it's not necessarily that they're not paying attention to demographics.

  
  They're not really, you know, understanding the nuances of how because one of the things that Lauren said in her piece, I loved this line. She said, demography is not destiny, but it's not divorced from it either. And that really goes to the options that countries have to understand and what their population looks like, understand what a neighboring countries or a regional country or a competitor's countries or a demographic looks like and make decisions that, you know, are based on that deep knowledge of an understanding of demographics, I would say.

  
  I can I ask Stephanie, don't you love it when you're quoted by the editor, you're so eloquent in your writing that she's indirectly. I would just add that a policy is can be its policy can be short sighted. Right. It's driven by election cycles and what's happening in the headlines today. And demography has like sort of a long shelf life.

  
  The investments we make today in women's health, in education and getting girls to school and, you know, sort of these sort of foundational investments are going to be what yields benefits decades down the line. Right. And so there's a little bit of a mismatch. But I don't think that anybody that you talk to on the street would feel like demography wasn't part of their life.

  
  I think, you know, for my generation or the sandwich generation, but also I've heard it referred to as the panini generation. Right. The pressure of caring for a older parents while also caring for young children. I think that there's a recognition in the U.S. that, you know, there is there is an aging population and the need for elder care and for people to retire and let others into the workforce.

  
  But these are debates, right, that come up. Sure. And so so I don't I don't I think that it's always sort of their in the back of people minds. I do think that there still isn't a great understanding of what it means in practice for policy. And that's what we're trying to get at. Yeah, I love the panini generation getting squeezed.

  
  The the. A couple of things about this and both the article you were you wrote Stephanie co-wrote about the workforce. You know there are these other issues that are percolating in the background that will have significant implications like I in the case of the workforce and Lauren you've done so much work over the years on climate, and that looms large in these demographic discussions because as populations grow and the need to produce more food grows and the changing climate creates different scenarios for where crops can be grown.

  
  All of this overlaps in such a dynamic way. Let's break it down. Let's Stephanie, first, if you talk about your thoughts on climate as it relates to demographics and then Stephanie, we'll ask you about in the workforce some of these other issues like I John, you've renamed us both. Stephanie. Sorry. Stephanie and stephanie no more as a complement, but well, I everybody needs an editor.

  
  I need one in real time. No, go ahead, Stephanie. Okay. So I'll talk about workforce and you know something that you just said, Lauren, about the long view of demography that we really need to take that long view, I think is is evident in researching the workforce development case, because when you look at what China did say in the you know, when when they were first kind of coming onto the scene, they really invested heavily in clean water and health and education and they had a laser focus on that, which helped them become who they are and are on the, you know, economic stage.

  
  And it really that was a long view that they had. And really held forth with that. You see, the same thing with the other country that we talk about is Estonia. They when they gained their independence from the Soviet Empire, they really made a point to create an education system that was truly theirs. That they invested in technology, made sure every classroom had a computer, every and and really also developed curriculum that was not so specifically connected to the Soviet empire, but one that really was Estonian.

  
  They really wanted to be independent and really thought about who they are as a as a people in a culture. And the people that we talked to really, really Estonia's doing very well in terms of preparing their workforce and and creating the type of environment. I think in part because of that and it also was, you know, when you look, you know, as I mentioned, our piece kind of zeroed in on sub-Saharan Africa, as you know, being the the place to offer the most young people for the the workforce that will be needed for the future.

  
  There were a lot of lessons that it could learn that the different different countries could learn and how to take some of those lessons. And help prepare their their future generations. And John, you asked me to take on two pretty big topics with the population piece and the lessons. But, yes, you know, talk to us about I know it's a big question, so let me try to narrow it.

  
  I'm really thinking in terms of how growing populations or aging populations may be affected by climate change and what are the implications of that. What we do know that some of the countries with the most rapidly growing populations are also those on the frontlines of climate change, Right? And those least resourced and sort of have the least capacity to respond right to climate's impacts.

  
  And so that's that's one thing that needs to be considered. And I you know, I talk about climate change as the context in which all of these things are happening and population is part of that. And so what does that mean for how we respond? And it's and it's really about increasing the resilience of populations, not just to weather events, but to sort of the the broader sort of livelihood security, job security, being able to go to school, those having health.

  Right. So what are the investments we can make in education, in health, into the in the economic structures of those countries so that people have people are able to sort of diversify their livelihoods away from, you know, if the crops are no longer growing where they're living, what else, what other sort of pathways do they have or resilience?

  
  So one one thing is to think about sort of where is climate change going to have the biggest impacts? And a lot of it is where those people where where there are the most rapidly growing populations least equipped to deal with those impacts and recognizing that. The other piece I'll say is that it's also about the energy transition.

  
  This is a pretty significant global transition, right? And most of the you know, you think about the energy needs of growing populations in sub-Saharan Africa, paired with the need to meet global climate goals and the fact that there are still 600 million Africans without electricity. So it becomes a sort of a, you know, question of justice to. Right.

  
  Like, how do we ensure that everybody has access to the energy that they need in a way that aligns with our global climate goals and allows sort of for this climate resilience to grow? And and so that is another piece of not just looking at specific countries and regions, but looking at how we all sort of all of these trends together and what the investments on the part of the developed world can be to help shore up the resilience of our developing country partners.

  
  I want to ask both of you to kind of put your heads together on this next round of of topics that we'll cover. And it has to do with one of the things that the issue both covers and that both of you in your remarks have done where, you know, it's not just a doomsday scenario, it's not just the sky is falling, right?

  
  There are opportunities, there are challenges, there are negatives, there are positives. But it's a mixed bag. And a lot of where it ends up is going to have a lot to do with the decisions that are taken along the way. So if you could talk to us about those things, what are the potential positives, things like a a youth dividend that could create an economic dividend or or maybe some of the downside, like political instability that could arise from a rapidly growing youth population in need of jobs and other things.

  And maybe if you could tie it to some of the specific things that are covered in the issue, like China, India, you know, some examples of where this is actually playing out and what we're seeing and what the trend lines indicate, Are we making decisions where this could turn out to be a positive thing or are we, you know, heading toward an iceberg?

  So any, you know, kind of random association, what are the things you think about in this regard? Stephanie Sure. I'll start. I think, you know, every piece sort of addresses those opportunities and the challenges because you know that that is just the reality for in Latin America. For example, we do a piece on Latin America. It is also aging.

  
  And one of the things that really struck me, a journalist by the name of Elder Moreno reported this piece, and he talked to a lot of people who no longer want to have kids for a variety of reasons. They said, it's too hard. I can't it's too expensive to raise a family or I can't balance work and family.

  
  Then there were people who had kids and exited the workforce, women who left. And so there are, because they weren't getting the accommodations that were needed to to make sense for them to stay working. So there are some specific policies and opportunities, you know, that are that now could make a more fair and equitable society that will also benefit, you know, the country as a whole, the workforce and, you know, the economics, stability of the region.

  
  I also think about Sara Barnes and Jay Gribble. They wrote a piece on fertility targets and it was very interesting to me. Fertility is always, you know, a go to when it comes to population dynamics. You know, China's one one child policy is, of course, the most well-known one when when countries are trying to control their their population growth or one way or another, other countries will offer, you know, subsidies and different benefits for, you know, people who have kids.

  
  But there are other things that should be considered when, you know, beyond how many children, you know, that's a very it's very personal. They go into a lot of different examples from different countries and look at what's worked in the U.S., in China, in Japan, Sweden and what hasn't, and give us a new frame for thinking about how to look at these issues.

  
  So those are two that immediately came to my mind. Yeah. You know, the again, I'm sorry to keep beating this drum, but, you know, the connective tissue in this issue and how it touches on just about any type of topic that you could imagine. Or as sexism comes into play, I can't remember which piece, but there's something in one of the articles about if men in the workforce have a child, they're taken more seriously.

  
  If women do, they're viewed as a liability. So there are all kinds of things happening here. Lauren, back to you on this question of are there countries that are trending in positive directions because they're managing this correctly versus countries that you could use as examples of they need to figure something else out because it's not working? Well, I mean, I think you could look at a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa that invested in voluntary access to family planning and girls education and saw their fertility rates decline.

  
  So, I mean, we know that when you send girls to school and when you provide women with health care that countries it yields significant economic and social gains for countries. Right. So there are things that we know to do. Whether they get done is another issue, I think. But but I also think it's not I think we can get caught up in the numbers.

  
  But really the question at the point is like, are people are people living healthy, prosperous, secure lives? Right. And what are the policies that that are sort of foundational to providing that pathway, I think. And is it sustainable? Yes, yes, yes, Yes, of course. Yes. One of the one thing that stood out to me when I was reading some of the other articles was the is the article on India by Leila Viscera.

  
  And she she wrote that women's mental health had been significantly like the U.S. for maternal health had led to the like boom. When they addressed women's mental health. The women lived longer, the babies were healthier. Maternal mortality was cut in half. Right. And so and that that it wasn't like they were addressing the women's mental health. They were just providing like sort of institutional support.

  
  They were providing access to care in a more effective way. And so so the mental health gains of that were significant, which then had significant. What would you call it? Bodily health, like brain. And so recognizing that all of these issues are tied together and it's a complex picture and it's context specific, and it matters a lot how people feel about their own bodily autonomy and what the access to care looks like.

  
  But sort of starting with some of these sort of basic premises can be really useful. Yeah. Good stuff. Stephanie, I want to ask you about migration and immigration and what the issue has to say about that. Various articles touch on it. And earlier, I think, Lauren, you had talked about how one reason the U.S. isn't on a certain list or maybe it was your Stephanie about is because of enough migration or immigration that we are replacing workers or feeding the workforce in ways that maybe other nations aren't.

  
  You know, this is kind of a perilous moment in global politics where we see the with the German elections, the rise of far right are far right political parties that are anti-immigration. And yet what the demographers are telling us, what the people who are writing in your issue are telling us, is that if we don't move people around, we're going to be dealing with all kinds of unsustainable situations.

  
  Yeah. And so I'm glad you brought this up. Jack Goldstone He was also part of what I like to call the Q Brain trust on this issue. He and Richardson Carter, who wrote the interactive piece that looks at a country's age structure as it relates to its overall development. I would check that one out. But but Goldstone's piece on immigration was really I mean, he made the case for migration.

  
  He really from his demographer, sociologist, you know, demographer lens taking on all of the, you know, the negative connotations and really showing, you know, actually immigrants don't commit more crime. And not only are some of the the myths not true, but the value of bringing immigrants into the country. You know, the U.S. is one but other countries. One piece that we were not able to do that we really wanted to and just didn't have the time and capacity was to talk about caregiving and immigration.

  
  And that, you know, when you look at the U.S. law and brought this up, you know, being part of the Panini generation, I love that. You know, I mean, there are such huge caregiving needs when you look I mean, just anecdotally, every every care facility I think I've ever been into has a majority of you know, employees are from from different countries.

  
  And they you know, a lot of our health care system is made up of an I don't have a number, but anecdotally I know it's a lot. But I think the value of immigration is such. And, you know, I mean, Jack doesn't in his piece, he doesn't say is perfect. He says we do need laws that will make orderly immigration better.

  
  You know, we need to really look at that. And instead of being afraid of immigration, let's look how to make the process stronger so that we can welcome in these workers that we need. And, you know, so I think that was that's really a good, good piece worth. Definitely worth checking out. Yeah. No, absolutely. Lauren. I want to go back to this question of sustainability.

  
  Right. So much of what we've been talking about and what is covered in the issue, there's a certain unspoken assumption in a lot of it about that the future will look a lot like the past in some ways as far as what we consider a a good lifestyle, right, and what a middle class looks like and really long held assumptions in many cases need to be thrown out the window.

  
  Can you talk a bit about that as you look into the crystal ball, you know, based on your work on sustainability? Well, what are some of the things we have? You mentioned one already, right? Energy that we really need to rethink energy. Are there other areas that are going to just have to look a lot different moving forward if we're going to achieve the goal of managing these demographic changes and creating good lifestyles and sustainability?

  
  Yeah, I think I wish I had a crystal ball. Yeah, maybe. I don't. I don't know. I think it. I mean, okay, so energy systems. Yes, food systems, you know, but a lot of the a lot of the scarcity is manmade. Right. Like, and when you think about climate change, for example, it's not the the the source of climate change is coming from the developed world, which has a, you know, fertility rate that is much below other parts of the world.

  
  And so the the source of unsustainable consumption is not population numbers. Right. That being said, as population, especially in sort of developing countries, as they develop, you want them to have access to the same benefits of development that the rest of the world has had access to. I think, you know, when you think about food systems, energy systems, I think, you know, it's going to we're going to lean on technological advances, but that is not a silver bullet.

  
  It is going to have to come down to consumption habits and patterns. When you think about like plastics, for example, the consumption of plastics, what it's doing to our oceans, to our bodies, to our land. There's there's a lot more awareness raising that's going to need to be done. But the in terms of food systems, we you know, the the the Russia's incursion into Ukraine through global food systems, you know, a big stressor.

  
  Right. And so we have a very integrated food system that relies heavily on global trade. And so thinking about where our food is grown, how we're growing our food, where it goes to, what kinds of food we're growing. Right. And not just crops, but also these think about like the impact of of beef on on land and and climate change so that all of these issues are integrated in really complex ways.

  
  There is a lot of power dynamics at play that make it difficult to untie those knots, I think. But there's also a growing awareness of the challenges that we face. And I will say that this the sort of rising generations are coming, coming of age with an awareness that most of us didn't have. Right. And so it does give me hope if we are able to provide access to the tools and education and the resources that they need.

  Not that I want to say like, you know, it's on them, but I think there's a partnership there. Right. And a recognition of of the work that needs to be done. Well, like in a good relay race, we don't want to drop the baton in the hand, Right. We want it to be more seamless than that. You know, I want to take a big virtual highlighter and, highlight something you said earlier in your answer about and I'm only paraphrasing, but essentially you said that a lot of these problems are human made and that if we build a better mousetrap, there are some solutions available to us.

  
  And in the last article in issue, this statistic about enough food produced to feed 11 billion people, and I think the current world population is 8 billion, Is that correct? Yeah. And it's going to have 7 million kids die from hunger or disease each year. So that speaks to exactly what you're talking about. Some of these solutions are attainable if we can figure it out and if there's enough political will to get us there.

  
  Stephanie, final thoughts on this issue and then I'll ask you for a preview of what you're working on next as well. But I know we as promised, we did a nonlinear discussion, but we covered a lot of ground. We did cover a lot of ground. Other pieces that I want to highlight, we have a great piece on China from Wanxiang and a great piece on the Middle East from Climate Given and a wonderful photo essay on Nigeria's youth population as representative of Africa's youth population from curated by Amarachi and written by Amarachi Nwosu.

  
  I think, yes, in the climate piece that you quoted, that was from Mark Maslin and shook a battery. And a lot of really terrific authors in this issue that I think do bring it all together. And I think anyone who reads through it is going to have a much deeper understanding of this issue and and I think will enjoy it?

  
  There's some. So that is all I have to say on this issue. Coming up next, our fall issue is taking a look at the future of humanitarian assistance. And this is another one we've been talking about doing for a while, because we've seen complex emergencies getting more complex, getting more difficult. And what does it mean? What is it?

  
  How is the humanitarian assistance sector reacting to those changes? What needs to change? Who's supporting the efforts? Who's not? There's a lot to look at. And I think hopefully we'll come away. Policymakers will come away with a better understanding of humanitarian assistance, what it's accomplishing, how it can be changed to be more effective. Some new things on the horizon.

  
  Those in the sector, I hope, will be inspired and also see new, new things that will will help them motivated to do their work so well. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie, as well. Terrific discussion. I learned a lot from this issue and from speaking to you today. You know, the best news is for our viewers and listeners is we're not selling anything here that wasn't quarterly is available to you free of charge.

  
  We're just inviting you to join us in an exploration of some important ideas and discussions. We hope you enjoyed this edition of Wilson Center. Now that you'll read those in quarterly and that you'll join us again soon. Until then, for all of us at the center, I'm John Milewski, Thanks for your time and interest.