Another view of globalization
According to the Global Census Bureau study, about half of the world's population lives in countries whose birthrates are not sufficient to replace their current working populations. With less people to work, less people to pay taxes, less people to contribute to the economy, but more older people to care for, will create significant impact to the country economy.
Today, Europe, Russia, and Japan have the most severe problem as their birthrates have dropped significant in the past twenty years. The U.S, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea also have a lower birthrates but not so severe. China is a special case where it can control the birthrate to stay steady at one billion but with 400 million of its citizens will be over 65 by 2020, it will have a major problem. Especially to a fast growing economy as it will drain significant resources from its growth to support its internal issue. This could have increasing political and social problems.
Migration is one potential solution to help solve the problem of a declining work force. Especially Europe, Russia, and Japan will have more than 67% of their citizens retired by 2020. However, due to their rigid immigration policies, most of the migrants in these countries do not have legal status and they only work on menial jobs that nobody want. Because they are not considered legal, many are facing the challenge of integrating into the society and experience cultural conflict. Many experts considered these migrant workers are no different from “slaves” during the colonial time. They are forced to work on low paying jobs with no future, no advancement and often be mistreated by local authorities.
Other countries have better immigration policies called “selected” immigration. For example, the U.S and Canada have accepted only highly educated and skilled workers to migrate into their countries. Today 58% of African-born medical doctors and PhDs reside in the U.S. and 36% of foreign born engineers are working in the U.S and Canada. With globalization, this number is expected to increase as more technical people are migrating to better jobs, better opportunities and better living. Although many developing countries have complained about this “brain drain” situation but as long as there is limited opportunities in home countries, it will continue. In the next few years, it may increase more with the expected change in immigration policies of some European countries. (The U.K and Scandinavian countries are working on policies similar to a selected migration).
People often asked: “What countries will be successful in the next ten years? Most economists, who based their predictions on economic growth believe India and China will be the next global dominants. The data are very impressive as both have growth rate over 10% which is a “Miracle” in this post-financial crisis time. Today, India is behind China in overall GDP, and foreign investments but India could pass over China as the fastest growing economy in the world because its working-age population will continue to increase. Because the one-child policy, China's will not have enough workers to support their huge citizens reaching retirement age. Of course, India also has problem too as it faces the burden of having a very large proportion of its population in desperate poverty. Over 65% of its citizens live in slum and making less than a dollar a day when 12% of its people live in luxury. India's success in the IT sector has created a larger gap between the “Rich” and the “Poor” which could have potential consequence in the future. I believe both China and India still have many problems that each must overcome, including the large populations who have not enjoyed the benefits from economic growth. It would be difficult to consider a country to be powerful when most of its citizens live in poverty.
The areas with higher population growth and have younger workforce are Africa and South East Asia. They could change the balance equation of power over the next ten years. However, South East Asia and Africa will progress along different paths. If the education reform is successful, if the young population can be turned into highly skilled workforce then countries of South East Asia could become wealthier and more powerful. On the contrary, countries in Africa still has many problems with their economies and unstable political systems. Many are continue facing deep ethnic division and civil wars. Some may even become a source of global threats with terrorism and organized crime.
Many experts agreed that demographic factors will be an important factor in shaping both regional developments and political systems. China, Japan, and Korea, will experience a slowing of population growth but larger number of retired peoples over the next ten years. With fewer people to work and more people to support, their economies cannot grow and in the competitive global market, when the economy stop growing, it will decline. On the contrary, Southeast Asia countries such as The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia will continue to have rising populations and will emerge as a challenge to their northern countries. With more people to work their economies can grow faster to meet global demands. The main question is whether they could improve their education systems to develop a stronger skilled workforce and take advantage of the global economic growth that globalization is creating. This is still unknown because some experts believe that without appropriate actions, without education reform, without proper trainings, without proper skills, poverty pressures will push for migration from South East Asia region to North and Northeast Asia for unskilled works. In this case, the situation will be worst and it is not different from what happened in Europe with illegal immigrants from Africa seeking menial works and be treated badly there.
More than ever, the roles of education and skill trainings will determine the rising of South East Asia as the area to be recognized with or the demise of a potential area that miss an opportunities to be a global major powers.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
