Japan May be Wasting its Youth

As one of the most rapidly aging societies in the world, one might think that in Japan the older population would look approvingly on the younger generation that is helping to support them economically. A story in the New York Times suggests that this may not be the case, as young people are stymied by a system that protects older workers to the detriment of the young.

“There is a feeling among young generations that no matter how hard we try, we can’t get ahead,” said Shigeyuki Jo, 36, co-author of “The Truth of Generational Inequalities.” “Every avenue seems to be blocked, like we’re butting our heads against a wall.”

An aging population is clogging the nation’s economy with the vested interests of older generations, young people and social experts warn, making an already hierarchical society even more rigid and conservative. The result is that Japan is holding back and marginalizing its youth at a time when it actually needs them to help create the new products, companies and industries that a mature economy requires to grow.

A nation that produced Sony, Toyota and Honda has failed in recent decades to nurture young entrepreneurs, and the game-changing companies that they can create, like Google or Apple — each started by entrepreneurs in their 20s.

Employment figures underscore the second-class status of many younger Japanese. While Japan’s decades of stagnation have increased the number of irregular jobs across all age groups, the young have been hit the hardest.

Are Demographics Involved in the Protests in Yemen?

The turmoil in Egypt, especially Cairo, has grabbed the headlines for the past few days, but protests have been ongoing in Yemen, as well, as reported by the BBC:

Yemen suffers from high population growth, unemployment running at 40%, rising food prices and acute levels of malnutrition.

Yemeni protesters are calling for a more responsive, inclusive government and improved economic conditions but - with oil production falling - the current economic trend is heading downwards.

Public demonstrations across the region are raising the stakes for change in Yemen.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh came to power in 1978, first as president of North Yemen and then, after unification with South Yemen in 1990, as leader of the newly united republic.

Are Demographics Involved in the Egyptian Turmoil?

David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times, who has been lead reporter on the stories of the new revolutions in Arab states, has pointed out that the street demonstrations in Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt appear to have erupted among young people, and may be more secular in origin than necessarily being related to any specific influence from the Muslim Brotherhood, although the Muslim Brotherhood seems clearly to becoming more involved. As in Tunisia, social networking on the (now-disconnected) internet was an important means of spreading the message. But does this mean that demographic trends played a specific role?

I think that the answer to this question has to be 'yes.' When Hosni Mubarak assumed the Egyptian presidency in 1981, following the assassination of Anwar El-Sadat, the population of Egypt was 45 million and the average woman was bearing 5.5 children. Mubarak, like El-Sadat, Mubarak was generally in favor of family planning among married women and under his 30 years of rule, the total fertility has dropped to 2.8--albeit still well above the replacement level. However, the relative slowness of that decline, accompanied as it was by a rapid drop in infant mortality, has meant that the population of young people has grown enormously. As of this year, 52 percent of all Egyptians are under the age of 25, and one in five is between the ages of 15-24--the ages of many of those out in the streets demonstrating against the government. When Mubarak took office, there were 9 million youth aged 15-24, and now there are 17 million, according to data from the UN Population Division. That's a lot of people to be dissatisfied with the difficulty of finding jobs, paying the bills, and saving money to marry and raise a family. To be sure, the mere presence of this large youth population would not, on its own, spark a revolution. But it was dry tinder waiting for the spark, which seemed to have been lit in Tunisia.

The Growth of the Muslim Population

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a project of the Pew Research Center in Washington, DC, has just released a new, detailed report on the Future of the Global Muslim Population. Let me say immediately that their data confirmed my own estimates that Muslims are expected to remain as a very small fraction of Europe's population. Here are some of the highlights from the report's executive summary.

The world’s Muslim population is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, rising from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.2 billion by 2030, according to new population projections by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Oldest African-American Died Recently

Just a few days ago, the oldest African-American, Mississippi "Sweetie" Winn (a woman, not surprisingly) died at age 113. Despite her name, she lived most of her life in Louisiana. At the time of her death, she was the seventh-oldest living person in the world, according to Robert Young of the Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles, which verifies information for Guinness World Records. Her great-niece Mary Hollins described her as:

"A strong-willed person, a disciplinarian" who believed that elders should be respected. "She was living on her own until she was 103," Hollins said, cooking for herself and taking walks. "She just believed she could handle anything."

State of the Union and Tunisian Demographics

President Obama's State of the Union address this evening was focused almost entirely on US domestic policy, but among the very few references to international events was his comment that the US government supported the recent events in Tunisia. By coincidence, I have to think (since the president's speech was leaked to the press later in the day), Richard Cincotta today posted a lengthy discussion of the demographics of the Tunisian situation. Among the many interesting comments is the following paragraph, which helps you to contextualize what's going on in Tunisia:

To understand how age structure can directly influence a state’s chances of attaining and maintaining liberal democracy requires a discussion of two models of sociopolitical behavior: (1) the Hobbesian bargain and (2) the youth bulge thesis. Assuming, as the English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes did in the middle of the 17th century, that citizens are willing to relinquish political liberties when faced with threats to their security and property (the Hobbesian bargain), it is not surprising that support for authoritarian regimes – especially among commercial and military elites – appears high when societies are very youthful and prone to political violence (the youth bulge thesis). When fertility declines, the population’s bulge of young adults ultimately dissipates over time. With much of society’s political volatility depleted, authoritarian executives tend to lose the support of the commercial elite, who find the regime’s grip on communication and commerce economically stifling and the privileges granted to family members and cronies of the political elite financially debilitating. 

Should the Population of the US House of Representatives Increase?

The framers of the US Constitution designed the US House of Representatives to grow with the population, stipulating only that no congressional district should have fewer than 30,000 constituents. And the House did increase in size throughout the 19th century, in tandem with the growth of the American population. The original House of Representatives included 65 members and after the 1910 census it increased to 433, with two more being added shortly after that in 1912 when Arizona and New Mexico were added as states. It has stayed at 435 since then, without even additions in 1959 when Alaska and Hawaii became states. What happened? Shouldn't Congress have kept growing right along with the population? Dalton Conley (a professor at NYU) and Jacqueline Stevens (a professor at Northwestern) think it should and have said so in an Op-Ed in today's New York Times. They argue that growth in Congress stopped because:

Demographics of the Rich and the Rest

This week's Economist has a special section on the global elite--"The Rich and the Rest." There are too many good demographic insights and comments for a single posting, so here is a start. How many rich people are there in the world? The consulting firm Capgemini defines anyone with "investable" assets (not including the home you live in) of at least $1 million (in US dollars) as a "high-net-worth-individual." They estimate that there are 10 million such people in the world--about one tenth of one percent of the human population. Credit Suisse has a less stringent definition of rich, calling anyone a millionaire if the sum of all net assets (value minus debt), including their house, exceeds $1 million.

The Credit Suisse “Global Wealth Report” estimates that there were 24.2m such people in mid-2010, about 0.5% of the world’s adult population. By this measure, there are more millionaires than there are Australians. They control $69.2 trillion in assets, more than a third of the global total. Some 41% of them live in the United States, 10% in Japan and 3% in China.

How did these people grow rich? Mostly through their own efforts. Only 16% of high-net-worth individuals inherited their stash, according to Capgemini. The most common way to get rich is to start a business: nearly half (47%) of the world’s wealthy people are entrepreneurs.

The Poverty of Poverty Measures

How poor do you have to be to be poor? That is the question that is asked in many places around the world. The World Bank definition of living below $2/day is arbitrary, but it makes the point that a large proportion of the human population has very little in the way of resources. In the United States, as in most developed countries, there is an officially established poverty line that typically determines eligibility for government-subsidized benefits. In the United States, the official definition of poverty has been criticized since it was first formulated in the 1960s and in response to that the Census Bureau has spent 16 years developing a new "supplemental poverty measure." It is supplemental because it will not replace the official definition (at least not yet), but nonetheless has the goal of offering a more realistic picture of poverty in America. The Economist this week summarized the most recent results:

The Politics of China's One-Child Policy

As I note in Chapter 6, the Chinese government recently decided to maintain its one-child policy for at least another decade. Richard Cincotta, Demographer-in-Residence at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC., has recently posted an analysis of what this might mean. The potential political implications of this decision are very interesting:

Could it be, however, that the direction of the 2008 decision reflected Beijing's ultimate vision of China as an intensely educated, more economically independent, and more respected great power? Slowed population growth, followed by a period of population decline, could-over the long term-reduce the country's exposure to, and impact on, international grain and petroleum markets that have become increasingly volatile. And a slowly growing (or declining), better-educated Chinese population could make it advantageous for Beijing to enter into a future carbon emissions trading regime.

A New Country Emerging in Southern Sudan

Although the count is still unofficial, there are reports that the vote by the population in the south of Sudan has exceeded the required 60 percent in favor of succession from Sudan. The vote, which was completed this week, but may take several weeks to ratify, was part of a 2005 peace agreement that ended the worst of the violence between the largely Arab-speaking Muslim population in the north of the country, and the largely Christian or traditional religion populations in the south. The BBC news has noted that:

North and south Sudan have suffered decades of conflict driven by religious and ethnic divides. Southern Sudan is one of the least developed areas in the world and many of its people have have long complained of mistreatment at the hands of the Khartoum government.

Refugees From the American Revolution

The idealized story of the American Revolution is that Americans freed themselves from the tyranny of the British. But, as with most things in life, the story is more complicated than that. The Economist this week reviews a new book about the American Revolution looking at it from the side of the "losers" (but not, in this case, the British themselves): "Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First Civil War," by Thomas Allen (New York: Harper, 2010). What caught my eye, in particular, was this description of what happened to those people who were not generally in favor of battling the British:

The Emergence of Latino Political Influence in the US

An important takeaway from the recently released census numbers (the state data used for congressional apportionment) was that the growing Latino population in the US made a difference, and Latino organizations such LatinoDecisions are very aware of this, but with a realistic outlook on what it means:

The difficulty for Latinos in the reapportionment and representation process is this: states will gain legislative representation due to surges in Latino population, yet millions contributing to the net population growth are not able to vote due to age or citizenship status.  One-third of all Latino American citizens are too young to vote, and another 12.8 million Latinos are not eligible due to citizenship status.   Furthermore, recent years have seen politics fueled with anti-Latino rhetoric and policy agendas that are diametrically opposed to Latino preferences.  Thus, it is uncertain how much substantive or descriptive representation Latinos stand to gain from upcoming redistricting despite their obvious national presence.  It would be a horrible irony to see states adding congressional seats because of Latino growth, only to design districts and/or elect representatives with legislative agendas antagonistic to Latino interests in the state.  Once states have re-drawn their new districts, it will be worth revisiting how Latinos factored into deliberations and the prospects for increased representation.

Is There Really Global Warming? Do Glaciers Melt?

One of the clearest and most obvious signs of global warming is the rather startling melting of glaciers all over the globe. And it turns out that you don't need anything as sophisticated even as a yard stick to prove this. Rather, the proof lies in the uncovering of mysteries--missing airplanes and people, for example--as the ice layers melt. A story by Simon Romero from Bolivia in today's New York Times summarizes some of the evidence:

...on Huayna Potosí’s glacier [climbers last November found] crumpled fuselage, decades-old pieces of wings and propellers, and, in November, the frozen body of Rafael Benjamín Pabón, a 27-year-old pilot whose Douglas DC-6 crashed into the mountain’s north face in 1990.

“When I found the pilot, he was still strapped into his seat, crunched over like he was sleeping, some black hair falling from his skull,” said Eulalio González, 49, the climber who carried Mr. Pabón’s mummified body down the mountain. “There are more ice mummies in the peaks above us,” he said. “Melting glaciers will bring them to us.”

The discovery of Mr. Pabón’s partially preserved remains was one of a growing number of finds pulled from the world’s glaciers and snow fields in recent years as warmer temperatures cause the ice and snow to melt, exposing their long-held secrets. The bodies that have emerged were mummified naturally, with extreme cold and dry air performing the work that resins and oils did for ancient Egyptians and other cultures.

Up and down the spine of the Andes, long plagued by airplane crashes and climbing mishaps, the discoveries are helping to solve decades-old mysteries.

A Rebellion of the Young in Tunisia

The President of Tunisia, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled the country yesterday and sought refuge in Saudi Arabia, the victim what appears to be the first successful street demonstration rebellion in the Arab world. According to a story by David Kirkpatrick in the New York Times:

The antigovernment protests began a month ago when a college-educated street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi in the small town of Sidi Bouzid burned himself to death in despair at the frustration and joblessness confronting many educated young people here. But the protests he inspired quickly evolved from bread-and-butter issues to demands for an assault on the perceived corruption and self-enrichment of the ruling family.

The self-enrichment issue related especially to Ben Ali's second wife "the former Leila Trabelsi, a hairdresser from a humble family whose relatives have amassed conspicuous fortunes since her 1992 marriage. 'Policeman, open your eyes, the hairdresser is ruling you,' they chanted, addressing Mr. Ben Ali."

Palestinians as a Political Force in Latin America

A half-century of political instability in the Middle East has created a huge Palestinian (and Lebanese) diaspora, with a large fraction of migrants from there having settled in several Latin American countries (think of Shakira, for example, the Lebanese-origin Colombian singer). My son, Greg Weeks, has posted several comments on this phenomenon. Chile has a large Palestinian-origin population, and this is almost certainly behind the decision of Chile's President Piñera to support an independent Palestinian state.

At the same time, a PhD student doing research for his dissertation in Honduras has talked about the rise of Protestant Evangelicals in Latin America who have an affinity for the Jewish state and who refer to Palestinians somewhat derogatorily as "turcos."

Look Out! The Baby Boomers Are Coming of Age

2011 is the year in which the first of the Baby Boomers reach age 66--the age at which their full Social Security benefits are available to them. The Economist covered this story in its 2010 end-of-year issue, and, although they didn't call it this, they did a very nice age-period-cohort analysis of the political impact that this is going to have. The age part is obvious. At 65 in America you qualify for Medicare, the government-funded health insurance program for older (as well as disabled) persons, and, as noted, at 66 the full Social Security benefits kick in. By "full" I mean that by waiting to age 66, baby boomers can collect Social Security and continue to earn other income without any reduction in their pension benefit. 

The cohort effect refers to "the notion that a person’s lifelong voting habits are established early on. Charlie Cook, a political analyst, says today’s retired were shaped by the perceived failure of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s and the success of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. In 2008 some may also have identified more with the 72-year-old John McCain than the 47-year-old Mr Obama."

Migration in US Slowed Along With the Economy

Demographer Bill Frey at the Brookings Institution has just released a report showing that interstate migration in the United States dropped to the lowest level since the Census Bureau first start collecting annual migration data in the Current Population Survey back in 1948. This is consistent, of course, with the fact that the current recession is the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Migration is a signpost that there are opportunities out there somewhere, whereas bad times cause us to hunker down and stay put.

Irresistible Forces: Latin American Migration to the US

This is a shameless self-promotion of a just-released book written by my son, Greg Weeks, and I called "Irresistible Forces: Latin American Migration to the United States and Its Effect on the South," published by the University of New Mexico Press. The book informs the discussion of the migration transition in the Population text and, as you might suspect, the Population text significantly informs our new book. However, the book also updates and advances the concept of political demography--the intersection of demographic change and policy choices that countries make. 

The central argument of this book is that only through an analytic combination of politics and demography can the dynamics of migration (and the reactions to it) be fully grasped.  This political demographic approach will demonstrate that irresistible forces are at work changing the face, quite literally, of the South--changes that are broader than often realized.  People in Latin America are not just moving to the traditional “gateways” in the United States (e.g. California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Florida); they are also arriving in new areas of the country.  Furthermore, these new migrants are not only from Mexico, but are from all over Latin America. 

How Many Muslims Are There in Europe?

I recently received an inquiry from a researcher in the Netherlands, Morly Frishman, who was trying to track down the origin of a purported projection that by 2020 one in four Europeans would be Muslim. I quote part of the note with his permission:

This is what my question concerns. As you may know, one of the issues taken by the Dutch politician Geert Wilders is the present and future of Muslims in Europe (or, as he puts it, the "Islamization of Europe"). In this context, Wilders quotes a 'study by the University of San Diego', according to which "a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now." Wilders does not provide more information regarding this study, which makes it difficult to trace. Other sources seem to refer to the same study, attributing it to a 'Jan Wax' (see e.g. http://www.mediareviewnet.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=302; or otherwise, see Google search results for the query "San Diego University researcher Jan Wax"). I suspect "Jan Wax" might actually be a failed attempt to refer to you; your name, lost in translation, so to say. Furthermore, I suspect that not only your name has been twisted, but also your data is presented by others in a deceiving way. But I do not know that for sure, as all my attempts to find such a study have failed. 

Since the San Diego State University International Population Center, which I direct,  has produced various estimates of the Muslim population in the world that have been published by US News and World Report as well as CNN, it is certainly possible that someone associated my name with Muslim population figures. However, I have never suggested, and I have never seen anyone else in academics suggest, that Muslims could account for 25 percent of Europe's population by 2020. Our estimates suggest that as of 2009 (the most recent date for which we have data), the 18 million Muslims living in the European Union account for about 5 percent of the total population. Even if we include Russia and Turkey in our definition of Europe, Muslims account for only 18 percent of the population and it is impossible to imagine that the figure could rise to 25 percent by 2020.

My own Google searches suggest that the origin of the misinformation might have been an article published in 2006 by Peter Jenkins at Penn State University ("Demographics, Religion, and the Future of Europe," Orbis, 50(3):519-539, Summer 2006), in which he disputes Bernard Lewis's suggestion that Europe could have a Muslim majority by 2100 by arguing instead that 

A Muslim population of around 25 percent by 2100 is more probable—a historically striking statistic, with enormous political implications, but nothing like a majority.(p. 533)

Anti-Immigrant Vitriol in Arizona

Arizona has become the "clash of civilizations" in the United States between an older non-Hispanic white population and a younger heavily Hispanic population. Census data show that 76 percent of Arizonans aged 45 and older are non-Hispanic white (and only 15 percent are Hispanic in those ages), whereas less than half (48 percent) of Arizonans under the age of 45 are non-Hispanic white (and 37 percent are Hispanic in those ages). Those two groups comprise 88 percent of the population, with the remainder including American Indians (5 percent), African Americans (4 percent), and Asians and others (3 percent). 

These demographic dynamics almost certainly fed into the decision recently by the State of Arizona to declare that the Tucson Unified School District's Mexican-American program was illegal and would be defunded unless it was dramatically altered.

Cholera Causes Backlash Against Haitian Immigrants

It's bad enough that Haiti has been suffering a cholera epidemic, on top of the nearly national ruination brought on by last year's earthquake. Now comes word that because of its fear that cholera will arrive with immigrants from Haiti, its island neighbor, the Dominican Republic, has begun deporting illegal Haitian immigrants.

Relations between the two neighbours have historically been tense, but they improved after a devastating earthquake destroyed much of Haiti in January of last year.

At the time, the Dominican authorities announced they would stop deporting Haitians who entered the country illegally.

But since Monday, soldiers have joined police in setting up new roadblocks, not just on the border but also on key roads leading to Santo Domingo.

The United Nations has estimated that before the earthquake, around 600,000 Haitians lived in the Dominican Republic illegally.

Ethiopian migrants drown in Gulf of Aden

Life is not easy in Ethiopia, one of the world's most rapidly growing and poorest countries. Thus, it is not surprising that many look for a better life elsewhere. A favorite route is through Somalia to Yemen, and from there to to Saudi Arabia or even possibly Europe. But, getting smuggled illegally into other other countries is always a risky business and the BBC has reported that as many as 80 Ethiopians drowned when their over-crowded boats capsized in bad weather before reaching Yemen.

Thousands of people attempt the dangerous journey from Africa across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen every year.

The UN's refugee agency says more than 74,000 Africans arrived in Yemen in 2009, fleeing "desperate situations of civil war, political instability, poverty, famine and drought in the Horn of Africa".

Rising Food Prices Again in the Headlines

Rising food prices are a powerful source of unrest in poor countries, so the entire world monitors these prices carefully. Currently they are on the rise again, leading to new concerns. Indeed, this month they rose above the level of 2008, which had sparked food riots in several countries. According to a BBC report, the immediate causes are related largely to weather. 

The current spike in prices is being caused primarily by increases in the cost of sugar and, more importantly, cereals, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.The price of wheat in particular has risen sharply. This is because wildfires last year in Russia, which accounts for 11% of global exports, resulted in an export ban, the institute's director of markets, trade and institutions, Maximo Torero, told the BBC.

The recent floods in Australia, which also accounts for 11% of global exports, has compounded the problem, he said. The price of corn has also risen, because of greater support for biofuels in the US and the increased price of oil, which makes biofuels more attractive. Droughts in Argentina, the world's second biggest exporter of corn behind the US, have also pushed the price up, Mr Torero said. "The situation is very tight. If we have more natural disasters, we could have a problem," he said.

Anchor Babies Stir Up the Immigration Debate

The new year and a new Republican majority in the US House of Representatives have stirred up the immigration debate, with a renewed focus on anchor babies--children born in the US to non-citizens. The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to anyone born in the United States, no matter what the status might be of their parents. This amendment was passed after the Civil War because the Supreme Court, in the famous Dred Scott decision just prior to the Civil War, had ruled that persons of African descent could not become US citizens. The 14th amendment repudiated that decision and a later Supreme Court decision applied the birthright principle clearly to immigrants. 

The issue, however, is really not about the 14th amendment, but about the reasons why people migrate to the United States. Although some women from Mexico do cross the border to deliver babies in the United States, having a child in the United States is certainly not the reason for high levels of undocumented immigration. People come looking for work and since it is young adults who predominate in the migrant stream, they are likely to wind up getting pregnant and having children in the United States. (Note: I have seen no one suggesting that what we need is to increase the number of family planning providers to undocumented immigrants.) Nonetheless, as reported today in the NY Times, Arizona is leading the way on the anchor baby issue.

This time, though, Arizona lawmakers intend to join with legislators from other states to force the issue before the Supreme Court.

This coalition of lawmakers will unveil its exact plans on Wednesday in Washington, but people involved in drafting the legislation say they have decided against the painstaking process of amending the Constitution. Since the federal government decides who is to be deemed a citizen, the lawmakers are considering instead a move to create two kinds of birth certificates in their states, one for the children of citizens and another for the children of illegal immigrants.

The theory is that this could spark a flurry of lawsuits that might resolve the legal conflict in their favor.

“This is not a far-out, extremist position,” said John Kavanagh, one of the Arizona legislators who is leading an effort that has been called just that. “Only a handful of countries in the world grant citizenship based on the GPS location of the birth.”

New Thoughts on the Impact of Humans on the Environment

The REALLY BIG picture issue related to population growth and development is the extent to which we are changing our physical landscape so much that we change human society in the process. It is a feedback loop, but one that is not yet well understood. The National Science Foundation recently funded a workshop on this topic at the University of Oregon, with the following ideas as background:

With world population projected to reach at least 9 billion by 2050, human interactions with landscapes are increasing at unprecedented rates. Indeed, the environmental impacts of human population growth and accompanying resource consumption have intensified to the extent that the term “anthropocene” has emerged to signify a new geologic era dominated by human activity. In the face of these impacts, including the installation and removal of dams, alteration of surface hydrology through urban development, and the transport of sediment from agriculture and other human interventions, workshop participants called for more attention to the effects of landscape change on individuals and societies, and for intensified efforts to develop predictive capacity for the effects of multiple stressors in human-landscape interactions.

Japan Continues to Tighten Screws on Immigrants

News today suggests that Japan is not only not interested in accepting new immigrants, but is actively discouraging them. The specific case is an almost impossibly difficult test that prospective nurses from other countries must complete in Japanese if they are to be certified to stay in the country after an initial trial period.

Despite facing an imminent labor shortage as its population ages, Japan has done little to open itself up to immigration. In fact, as Ms. Fransiska and many others have discovered, the government is doing the opposite, actively encouraging both foreign workers and foreign graduates of its universities and professional schools to return home while protecting tiny interest groups — in the case of Ms. Fransiska, a local nursing association afraid that an influx of foreign nurses would lower industry salaries.

Life in the Old-Old Lane

We spend a lot of time thinking about the economic consequences of an aging society, especially in terms of how such countries will pay for pensions and health care for an increasingly larger older population. Here the demographic focus is on low birth rates and whether immigration can or should be part of a solution. Recently, however, author Susan Jacoby took a more personal look at the reality of our living to increasingly older ages. What does it mean to be among those who are the aging population? Her 65th birthday produced reflections on what might lie ahead.

People my age and younger still pretend that old age will yield to what has long been our generational credo — that we can transform ourselves endlessly, even undo reality, if only we live right. “Age-defying” is a modifier that figures prominently in advertisements for everything from vitamins and beauty products to services for the most frail among the “old old,” as demographers classify those over 85. You haven’t experienced cognitive dissonance until you receive a brochure encouraging you to spend thousands of dollars a year for long-term care insurance as you prepare to “defy” old age. “Deny” is the word the hucksters of longevity should be using. Nearly half of the old old — the fastest-growing segment of the over-65 population — will spend some time in a nursing home before they die, as a result of mental or physical disability. 

Recession Demographics

One of the stories being plumbed from the latest American Community Survey data is the doubling up of households as a coping strategy in the current recession. A story in the New York Times focuses on only one family, but it starts with a few numbers from the ACS:

Of the myriad ways the Great Recession has altered the country’s social fabric, the surge in households like the Maggis’, where relatives and friends have moved in together as a last resort, is one of the most concrete, yet underexplored, demographic shifts.

Census Bureau data released in September showed that the number of multifamily households jumped 11.7 percent from 2008 to 2010, reaching 15.5 million, or 13.2 percent of all households. It is the highest proportion since at least 1968, accounting for 54 million people.