Age demographics hold the key to predicting future global trends, says an outspoken demographics expert.
David K. Foot, a professor of economics from the University of Toronto spoke on campus yesterday in a lecture hosted by the Department of Sociology and the Faculty of Arts as part of this year's centenary celebrations.
In 1996, sales of the first edition of Foot's book Boom, Bust, and Echo: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift quickly earned recognition as a Canadian bestseller, as did its updated edition - Boom, Bust, and Echo: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the 21st Century - several years later.
During his talk, Foot postulated that modern society's needs are being defined by the aging of the baby boom generation and its children, dubbed the "echo generation." Consumer trends, marketing, housing, education, childcare and health care have been largely influenced by the baby boomers, while members of the echo generation are now beginning to dominate the labour market.
Looking at Canada, Foot placed particular emphasis on creating more schools for Aboriginal communities because of their young populations. In Nunavut, he explained, approximately 50 percent of the population is under the age of 20. "They need schools, and they need schools now. No more negotiation - build schools," he said.
Foot also compared the baby boom in Canada with the United States, noting that the boom was more powerful in Canada, while the echo was more significant in the United States. "There are much more younger people [in the States]…. They are the future consumers and future workers for the US - we know that the US economy is going to grow faster than the Canadian economy. It's already locked in stone," he explained.
Age demographics and changes in population are also partly responsible for the shift in global power, Foot declared. "Germany, Russia and Japan are the powers of the past, not the powers of the future."
Foot went on to explain that "within a decade, a Muslim country will be the biggest country in western Europe," he said. "The Turkish population is now well-educated…. This is a country that's got a big domestic market, rising per capita income, and has a huge potential for the future, provided that it creates jobs for its young people."
He noted that Brazil and Vietnam will also be recognized as "countries of the future" with their large domestic markets, well-educated work forces and rising per capita incomes.
Foot made a special mention of China and India, often cited as emerging world powers, which will have entirely different futures due to the stark contrast in age demographics. China has a one-child per family policy, while India is home to a large youth-based population. "Economic growth in China is not going to come from the growth in the population; it's going to come from the growth in income," he said. He explained that India's large supply of young workers, however, would make it a low-cost competitor.
Foot underlined his list of observations with a simple recommendation: "This is the future. Now is the time to start planning for it."
Foot will be speaking on campus again on Friday, November 14 on the "Social and Economic Consequences of Population Aging" from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. in Tory 5-15.