Worldwide Demographics

[Yuri]

And finally Brazilian metro areas above 500k inh.

---------------------------- 2022 -------- 2010 -------- 2000

São Paulo -------------- 20.731.920 -- 19.683.975 -- 17.878.703 --- 5,32% -- 10,10%
Rio de Janeiro --------- 11.629.616 -- 11.825.040 -- 10.853.681 -- -1,65% --- 8,95%
Belo Horizonte ---------- 5.001.545 --- 4.772.562 --- 4.259.163 --- 4,80% -- 12,05%
Brasília ---------------- 4.168.664 --- 3.622.571 --- 2.866.339 -- 15,07% -- 26,38%
Porto Alegre ------------ 3.854.801 --- 3.876.595 --- 3.640.461 -- -0,56% --- 6,49%
Recife ------------------ 3.726.974 --- 3.690.547 --- 3.337.565 --- 0,99% -- 10,58%
Fortaleza --------------- 3.593.646 --- 3.468.137 --- 2.930.374 --- 3,62% -- 18,35%
Curitiba ---------------- 3.388.429 --- 3.060.332 --- 2.662.441 -- 10,72% -- 14,94%
Salvador ---------------- 3.299.362 --- 3.458.571 --- 3.021.572 -- -4,60% -- 14,46%
Campinas ---------------- 2.966.724 --- 2.630.893 --- 2.209.558 -- 12,76% -- 19,07%
Goiânia ----------------- 2.532.671 --- 2.116.730 --- 1.693.650 -- 19,65% -- 24,98%
Manaus ------------------ 2.063.689 --- 1.802.014 --- 1.405.835 -- 14,52% -- 28,18%
Belém ------------------- 1.978.620 --- 2.042.417 --- 1.795.536 -- -3,12% -- 13,75%
Santos ------------------ 1.805.531 --- 1.664.136 --- 1.476.820 --- 8,50% -- 12,68%
Vitória ----------------- 1.738.158 --- 1.565.393 --- 1.337.187 -- 11,04% -- 17,07%
São José dos Campos ----- 1.585.451 --- 1.415.146 --- 1.233.050 -- 12,03% -- 14,77%
São Luís ---------------- 1.458.836 --- 1.309.330 --- 1.070.688 -- 11,42% -- 22,29%
Natal ------------------- 1.263.637 --- 1.187.899 ----- 980.897 --- 6,38% -- 21,10%
Maceió ------------------ 1.222.505 --- 1.140.682 ----- 977.192 --- 7,17% -- 16,73%
João Pessoa ------------- 1.173.268 --- 1.034.615 ----- 870.339 -- 13,40% -- 18,87%
Florianópolis ----------- 1.177.131 ----- 878.260 ----- 709.941 -- 34,03% -- 23,71%
Ribeirão Preto ---------- 1.115.223 ----- 982.207 ----- 816.228 -- 13,54% -- 20,33%
Teresina ---------------- 1.040.765 ----- 969.690 ----- 845.052 --- 7,33% -- 14,75%
Sorocaba ---------------- 1.024.460 ----- 846.129 ----- 719.294 -- 21,08% -- 17,63%
Cuiabá -------------------- 998.131 ----- 851.587 ----- 741.975 -- 17,21% -- 14,77%
Londrina ------------------ 958.922 ----- 865.533 ----- 759.964 -- 10,79% -- 13,89%
Aracaju ------------------- 932.210 ----- 835.816 ----- 675.667 -- 11,53% -- 23,70%
Campo Grande -------------- 897.938 ----- 786.797 ----- 663.621 -- 14,13% -- 18,56%
Itajaí-B. Camboriú -------- 849.038 ----- 570.947 ----- 404.854 -- 48,71% -- 41,03%
Jundiaí ------------------- 843.633 ----- 698.724 ----- 580.131 -- 20,74% -- 20,44%
Maringá ------------------- 789.931 ----- 658.703 ----- 561.212 -- 19,92% -- 17,37%
Joinville ----------------- 778.481 ----- 620.572 ----- 511.812 -- 25,45% -- 21,25%
Uberlândia ---------------- 713.224 ----- 604.013 ----- 501.214 -- 18,08% -- 20,51%
Petrolina-Juazeiro -------- 624.612 ----- 491.927 ----- 393.105 -- 26,97% -- 25,14%
Feira de Santana ---------- 616.272 ----- 556.642 ----- 480.949 -- 10,71% -- 15,74%
São José do Rio Preto ----- 705.421 ----- 589.840 ----- 515.199 -- 19,60% -- 14,49%
Blumenau ------------------ 653.361 ----- 548.975 ----- 454.801 -- 19,01% -- 20,71%
Caxias do Sul ------------- 604.617 ----- 565.054 ----- 476.709 --- 7,00% -- 18,53%
Macapá -------------------- 550.551 ----- 499.466 ----- 363.747 -- 10,23% -- 37,31%
Juiz de Fora -------------- 540.756 ----- 516.247 ----- 456.796 --- 4,75% -- 13,01%

The most surprising thing about the Census was the completely collapse of population growth in the poorer regions (North and Northeast), indicating the resume of massive immigration and the collapse of growth on the big metropolises. The former certainly is the result of the 2015-2016 recession and economic malaise after that and the latter was a mixed of this and Covid.

São Paulo metropolitan area was hit hard by the Covid and as result neighbouring metro areas grew like crazy, Campinas, Sorocaba, Jundiaí all capturing SP migrants. São Paulo Macrometropolitan Area reached 33,598,706, a 8% growth over 2010 and above the 6% of the country's growth.

Big metropolises like Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Salvador and Belém posting negative growth falling down from quite healthy growth rates. That was something unthinkable. If I'm not mistaken, no US Rust Belt metro area posted negative growth between the two last census.

Santa Catarina state has definitely become Brazil's Sun Belt, with Florianópolis and Itajaí-Camboriú speeding their already crazy growth rates. Even though Santa Catarina is wealthy, they have a very poor general infrastructure compared to São Paulo state and I don't know how long they will manage this kind of growth.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Yuri

Santa Catarina state has definitely become Brazil's Sun Belt, with Florianópolis and Itajaí-Camboriú speeding their already crazy growth rates. Even though Santa Catarina is wealthy, they have a very poor general infrastructure compared to São Paulo state and I don't know how long they will manage this kind of growth.

We have good friends from Joinville in Santa Catarina, and they claim the area is booming with newcomers from SP and Rio. Lots of new construction, but yeah, the infrastructure is still very small town.

They also have a beachfront condo in Balneário Camboriú, which they still visit fairly frequently. They're always trying to get us to go down with them (our kids are super-close).

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Crawford

We have good friends from Joinville in Santa Catarina, and they claim the area is booming with newcomers from SP and Rio. Lots of new construction, but yeah, the infrastructure is still very small town.

They also have a beachfront condo in Balneário Camboriú, which they still visit fairly frequently. They're always trying to get us to go down with them (our kids are super-close).

Not only middle-classers from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, but the South, which never got migrants from other regions, but instead sent them away, now it's getting a big number of poor immigrants from Northeast. That now make the bulk of migration there. Santa Catarina gpopulation grew from 6.2 million to 7.6 million between census, of which 600k was natural growth and 800k were migrants. A massive number to digest.

The political climate after Dilma impeachment and Bolsonaro is uber toxic as you can imagine. Florianópolis is more open minded, maybe due the state university and being state capital (Lula almost beat Bolsonaro there), but the rest of the state has become a far-right stronghold. Racism, which was always present, now it's becoming a real issue as they have now a bigger non-white population made of migrants from other states. Santa Catarina is no longer Brazilian whitest state: it was replaced by Rio Grande do Sul on this census.

Regarding infrastructure, horrible highways, no transit and even basic services such as paved roads or sewer. Santa Catarina is as wealth as São Paulo, but infrastructure is light years away. It's on the level of a middle income Brazilian state.

Another thing: up to the beginning of 2023, São Paulo was still the most expensive real estate in Brazil (after overcoming Rio de Janeiro and Brasília after the crisis), but Florianópolis, Balneário Camboriú and Itajaí all have overtaken São Paulo on the 2nd half/2023, according to the monthly reports FIPE/ZAP reports.

With such high prices and very bad infrastructure, I'm not sure for how long they will manage to keep such high rates. They have a very strong and dynamic economy, but they rely a lot on "quality of life" to attract people and investments there. A person that might leaving São Paulo to have a more laidback life, will find out traffic jams there have become worse than São Paulo's.

[Yuri]

Back to the US, the Census Bureau released few months ago their new population projection.

Changes from the last one made in 2017 are big, capturing the dramatic decrease on US TFR, a strong increase on deaths (and a staggering decrease on life expectancy) and relatively weak immigration, all occuring somewhere in the mid-2010's. They're only six years apart:

Old table:
2020: 332,639,000
2030: 355,101,000
2040: 373,528,000
2050: 388,922,000
2060: 404,483,000

New table:
2020: 331,449,281 (actual Census population)
2030: 345,074,000
2040: 355,309,000
2050: 360,639,000
2060: 364,287,000
2070: 367,913,000
2080: 369,363,000 (peak)
2090: 368,120,000
2100: 365,558,000

The official estimate for 2023 is at 334,914,895 slightly above the projection for 2023 (334,906,000).

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by mhays

No, trailers are legal residences (if they're in repair). Living in a car means you're homeless.

Here is a trailer park right in the flight path. I drove around this thing a few weeks ago and it's probably the nicest trailer park I've ever seen. It's probably not really that cheap to live here.


Here is a more "rustic" situation...a pair of tiny trailer parks, plus RV parking (where people might be living), plus junk yards and a vape shop. What else could you want?

[isaidso]

Canadian population projections beyond the next few years don't hold much weight. We're currently in a high growth phase with annual increases in the 1.2 to 1.3 million range. With a 2025 Federal Election looming, immigration levels could see a significant drop if the Liberals are ousted. A Conservative government would surely lower immigration numbers but I doubt we'll be going back to the levels we saw (1% of the Canadian population or ~400,000) before the pandemic.

1.2 - 1.3 million growth to 2025
July 2023: 40,097,761
July 2024: 41,300,000
July 2025: 42,600,000

600,000 - 800,000 annual growth post 2025
July 2026: 43,400,000
July 2027: 44,100,000
July 2028: 44,800,000
July 2029: 45,400,000
July 2030: 46,000,000

I could be off but 46 million by 2030 seems reasonable. Even if the Conservatives want immigration to head back down to 400,000 annually they'll likely accomplish it incrementally rather than all at once. Large sudden changes to population growth are problematic for municipal planning departments, the development industry, and social services. If annual population increase stays at the current level, Canada could be near 50 million before the end of 2030.


https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1...001%2C20231001

[Yuri]

Canada natural growth, as it’s happening in the US, is declining fast. From 140k in 2009 to 50k now and it’s heading for zero by 2030. Mass immigration to Canada means more births compared to the US, but fertility there is considerably lower, so both countries will be on negative about the same time. The US will be ahead by 3-4 years.

Canada population growth will depend exclusively on migration. If they put a 400k cap, that will be the yearly growth, minus emigration and the inevitable negative natural growth.

As Canada is already experiencing several socioeconomic issues related to mass immigration, I guess this cap is very likely and actually welcomed. 400k would be like the US getting over 3 million a year. It’s already a big number.

[isaidso]

One of the reasons for high immigration levels was to get the working age population to retired ratio down to a healthier level. Bringing in lots of young people isn't a long term fix but will buy Canada more time and keep our demographic situation in a better position for longer. It's absolutely exacerbated our housing crisis though.

Amid the heightened scrutiny of the Liberal government's immigration policy, Immigration Minister capped the annual target at 500,000 permanent residents for 2026. Even if we keep it at 500,000/year, our population growth rate will decline over time. As you mentioned, Canada will be in negative natural growth in a few years; a number that will get bigger and bigger.

I agree that 500,000 is still a big number but doubt we'll see it go down below that any time soon.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by isaidso

One of the reasons for high immigration levels was to get the working age population to retired ratio down to a healthier level. Bringing in lots of young people isn't a long term fix but will buy Canada more time and keep our demographic situation in a better position for longer. It's absolutely exacerbated our housing crisis though.

Amid the heightened scrutiny of the Liberal government's immigration policy, Immigration Minister capped the annual target at 500,000 permanent residents for 2026. Even if we keep it at 500,000/year, our population growth rate will decline over time. As you mentioned, Canada will be in negative natural growth in a few years; a number that will get bigger and bigger.

I agree that 500,000 is still a big number but doubt we'll see it go down below that any time soon.

Yes, these are the reasons given for Canada's high intake of newcomers, which BTW doesn't just include immigrants under that specific program umbrella, but also temporary foreign workers, foreign students and even refugee claimants.

Now, Canada's demographic crash isn't a uniquely Canadian problem. Many other countries are facing it and indeed many many have even worse numbers than Canada. Some have found other solutions and others are struggling to come up with something to address the problem. The point is that not everyone is addressing it by bringing in historic numbers of people from abroad.

One of the generally unstated reasons for Canada's approach is that high population growth is a huge component of Canada's economic growth. More people coming in means more consumers which grows the economy. It's a fairly easy way to keep the economy growing, especially when one considers that Canada is a bit of a laggard in terms of productivity and innovation.

Call it an inconvenient Canadian truth. My favourite analogy is that it's like pouring gasoline directly into the carburetor to start your engine.

[Yuri]

^^
I'd say Japanese are still the best model for the future. They decided to embrace degrowth and they're doing relatively well: very low unemployment, their GDP per capita and income (PPP) remain in a very good level, low cost of living, high standards of living, good infrastructure, low inequality, virtually no crime and they kinda adapted to a scenario that will eventually catch up everybody soon or later.

Not saying societies should reject immigration. I'm very pro-migration, people must move to places they will do better, be moving inside their countries or overseas. However, that's not the way out of the this new scenario. It can help to mitigate the effects, but if they stop societies to adapt to this new scenario, it might actually do more harm than good. The whole world will need to learn to degrow soon or later.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Yuri

^^
I'd say Japanese are still the best model for the future. They decided to embrace degrowth and they're doing relatively well: very low unemployment, their GDP per capita and income (PPP) remain in a very good level, low cost of living, high standards of living, good infrastructure, low inequality, virtually no crime and they kinda adapted to a scenario that will eventually catch up everybody soon or later.

Not saying societies should reject immigration. I'm very pro-migration, people must move to places they will do better, be moving inside their countries or overseas. However, that's not the way out of the this new scenario. It can help to mitigate the effects, but if they stop societies to adapt to this new scenario, it might actually do more harm than good. The whole world will need to learn to degrow soon or later.

It would take a huge cultural change in the Canadian mindset and work ethic to adopt the Japanese model. Almost impossible in fact.

Almost like saying "why can't the Haitians simply do like Singaporeans did?"

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It would take a huge cultural change in the Canadian mindset and work ethic to adopt the Japanese model. Almost impossible in fact.

Almost like saying "why can't the Haitians simply do like Singaporeans did?"

Eventually even the population growing countries will have to deal with a shrinking population world. They don't exist alone on a vacuum, specially a mid-sized country like Canada. Our very economic system based on constant expansion will have to fundamentally change. Societies that adapt better to this new logic will be the winners. Population shrinking won't go anywhere. We already bought it. It will be our reality for this entire century.

To me, the smartest way is to copy or develop new models for this new world. I've always worried about population shrinking and the ways to stop it, but I realized eventually that's either useless or too late. If societies play the right cards, it won't be a tragedy. Right now we have examples of societies working with heavy population losses over a long period (Bulgaria, Latvia, Genoa, Galicia).

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Yuri

^^
I'd say Japanese are still the best model for the future. They decided to embrace degrowth and they're doing relatively well: very low unemployment, their GDP per capita and income (PPP) remain in a very good level, low cost of living, high standards of living, good infrastructure, low inequality, virtually no crime and they kinda adapted to a scenario that will eventually catch up everybody soon or later.

Japan is in recession and just got surpassed by Germany for third largest economy. And India will be passing Japan shortly.

Japanese salaries are extremely low, borderline developing world. Their domestic consumption is also extremely low. Their bedrock industry, autos, are getting eaten alive by refusal to transition to EVs. Their demographic crisis is worst in the world after China and S. Korea. They don't have a bright future, at all.

Canada can grow forever, it it chooses to grow. There's no reason it would (or could) emulate Japan.

[MolsonExport]

Cultural, not especially demographic, reasons are behind Japan's rock bottom crime. As a highly collectivistic and uniform society, most Japanese have a very strong interdependent self-construal. Also judicial: You are essentially guilty if tried for a crime. Japan has a 99.8 percent conviction rate in cases that go to trial, according to 2021 Supreme Court statistics, so the decision to indict or not has enormous significance. Citizens are very highly involved in crime prevention campaigns.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Cultural, not especially demographic, reasons are behind Japan's rock bottom crime. As a highly collectivistic and uniform society, most Japanese have a very strong interdependent self-construal. Also judicial: You are essentially guilty if tried for a crime. Japan has a 99.8 percent conviction rate in cases that go to trial, according to 2021 Supreme Court statistics, so the decision to indict or not has enormous significance. Citizens are very highly involved in crime prevention campaigns.

yeah there is good and bad with monocultural japan.

but you know whats a very good one? japanese school kids work with custodial staff and take a highly active part in the cleaning and upkeep of the school, including coming in on saturday mornings. i wish we had that, it would promote responsibility and keep those kids out of trouble. if i ever opened a charter school it would be all about good stewardship like that. instead, people are talking about 4 day weeks (public schools in nyc are actually allowed to do that now).

[Acajack]

I take it most of us saw that video of Japanese fans all cleaning up their section of the stadium at the end of a World Cup game?

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I take it most of us saw that video of Japanese fans all cleaning up their section of the stadium at the end of a World Cup game?

yeah, thats a direct result of going through the japanese public schools system. it’s automatic for the people!

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Japan is in recession and just got surpassed by Germany for third largest economy. And India will be passing Japan shortly.

Japanese salaries are extremely low, borderline developing world. Their domestic consumption is also extremely low. Their bedrock industry, autos, are getting eaten alive by refusal to transition to EVs. Their demographic crisis is worst in the world after China and S. Korea. They don't have a bright future, at all.

Japan is by no means poor. Life expectancy in Japan, for instance, is now almost a decade higher than the US. They have a superb infrastructure in place, they can buy whatever they want, a good health system, a much more healthy working environment they used to have.

Nominal GDP per capita is meaningless, specially for a country that keeps their interest rates negative. On PPP basis, Japan is solidly at the high income club and barely moved since their early 1990's peak compared to its peers.

Recession? Germany is recession right now, Britain is in recession. And worse, those two have growing populations, Japan a declining one. At per capita basis, recession in Japan doesn't mean the same.

I've seen you saying this elsewhere but it seems to me you have a quite distorted view on foreign countries and an obsessive comparison between them and your US. Living in those massive houses, change cars every year, being addicted to prescribed drugs, living one month away from eviction, very poor social welfare is by no mean a model of development.

GDP per capita at US$ 80,000 and life expectancy at 76 y/o, now lower than Brazil, a country with a US$ 9,000 GDP per capita, 10 years of economic stagnation and 42,000 homicides/year.

I'm aware you're wealthy and have a good life. But your living standards are not the metric of "development". The large majority of Americans is not as wealthy than you, but it doesn't mean they're "poor".

Originally Posted by Crawford

Canada can grow forever, it it chooses to grow. There's no reason it would (or could) emulate Japan.

As I said, Canada is a mid-sized country and as such very dependent on trends happening outside its borders. Worldwide population will decline. The entire Europe, Americas and Asia will have shrinking population and as result a new economic logic.

Canadian companies rely heavily on foreign markets. They're not North Korea. The world will change and Canada is part of the world. It doesn't matter if they decided to welcome 2 million Africans every year.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Japan is in recession and just got surpassed by Germany for third largest economy. And India will be passing Japan shortly.

Japanese salaries are extremely low, borderline developing world. Their domestic consumption is also extremely low. Their bedrock industry, autos, are getting eaten alive by refusal to transition to EVs. Their demographic crisis is worst in the world after China and S. Korea. They don't have a bright future, at all.

Canada can grow forever, it it chooses to grow. There's no reason it would (or could) emulate Japan.

Granted it's been a while since I was in Japan but can't imagine it's changed that much but they are not "borderline developing" but aren't the consumer culture like we are in the west. They are having a demographic time bomb and are no longer the economic juggernaut they were in the 80's when we thought they were going to take over the world one Corolla and Walkman at a time. Germany is growing like a weed and is the economic engine of the EU. Japan is being squeezed by competition from South Korea and China.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by JManc

Granted it's been a while since I was in Japan but can't imagine it's changed that much but they are not "borderline developing" but aren't the consumer culture like we are in the west. They are having a demographic time bomb and are no longer the economic juggernaut they were in the 80's when we thought they were going to take over the world one Corolla and Walkman at a time. Germany is growing like a weed and is the economic engine of the EU. Japan is being squeezed by competition from South Korea and China.

Japan is by no counts near developing level. I don’t know where Crawford takes those ideas from. Development doesn’t mean bigger SUVs, endless strip malls or whatever his idea of development is.

Japan has world’s highest life expectancy (as they did in the 1990’s), virtually no unemployment, low inequality, low poverty levels.

And by no means I believe Japan is devoid of problems or they’d be better off with a growing population and economy, but that’s not sustainable anyway. Look the climate crisis and demographics itself: the world can’t and won’t grow exponentially forever.

Japan, seems to dealing with this new world quite well: abandoning their exurbs and even suburbs, clustering on their big cities strategically positioned lined up along the coast (perfect for their infrastructure) while keep their society working smoothly. I fail to see what they could have been doing differently.

Is it Dallas, building McMansions on Oklahoma or Houston demolishing houses on Downtown to add highway lanes the way to go?