[UPDATE}
Why would we want to write about demographics? Has nothing to do with technology or travel – right? Actually it has plenty to do with both. Read on before you send us nasty comments please.
The generally accepted number of birth per woman for a country to maintain its population is 2.11. Higher than this and the population grows, lower than this and the population declines. This is important as you will see.
Nations that grow enable the older people to safely expect younger people, who are working and paying taxes, to enable the state to provide pensions and health care. This is a fine balance. If the taxpayer base erodes due to declining population growth then the whole house of cards (our name for state supplied health care and pensions) falls apart. This balance is out of whack in many countries that are big tourism destinations.
Because nations with proportionally more older people cannot provide the destination experience. Travel remains a heavy provider of services and older people are not going to be the waiters, drivers and so on. Its actually worse than that. Take Japan as an example.
In Japan the shortage of children (that's what it is) has grown so bad that toys are invented to play the role of a child to entertain old folks. It sad that this is where technology fits in. Japan's numbers are telling because this is the first country that is actually dying faster than it is breeding. We could see Japan with a much lower population in the next decade because it cannot start to reproduce fast enough now to get out of this slide. Imagine this – we could see Japan, once a mighty empire decline into an old age home where they have to import workers to care for the aged. The population of the elderly in Japan accounted for only 7.1% of the total population in 1970, 24 years later in 1994, it had almost doubled in scale, to 14.1%. By comparison, among countries with an aged population, it took 61 years in Italy, 85 years in Sweden, and 115 years in France for the percentage of the elderly to increase from 7% to 14% of the population. These comparisons clearly highlight the rapid progress of demographic aging in Japan. Japan is an experiment in national suicide without any outside help.
As if this is not depressing enough there's more. Look at this table.
| Country |
Fertility |
| Ireland |
1.90 |
| France |
1.89 |
| Denmark |
1.77 |
| Netherlands |
1.72 |
| UK |
1.60 |
| Germany |
1.35 |
| Austria |
1.35 |
| Italy |
1.23 |
| Spain |
1.1 |
| Russia |
1.14 |
The data for Spain means that we will see its population halve every generation. Perhaps now the impact of the data points becomes clear from a travel industry perspective. Among 17 Euro-nations, with 1.3 fertility rates or lower, their populations will halve every 35 years.
A typical response to this doom and gloom is to talk about migration closing the gap. Well, maybe. Migration cannot close the gap without say, France no longer being French. But there's more. If you were a young, skilled professional from Pakistan in 2020, where would want to live? In Europe where you are going to be taxed up the wazoo to support older people? Maybe you would prefer Canada? Maybe, not. Canada's fertility rate is also low.
So where is our young skilled Pakistani to go? America of course! The USA fertility rate is 2.1. There will be many old people in the USA in 2020 but also lots of kids. This demographic data is very important and often overlooked. The world's young will migrate to the population denuded nations of Europe in droves. Take a look at where they are going to come from. You can make up your own mind what this cocktail will bring with it.
Now back to travel and tourism. Europe will no longer be what it is in the next 30 years. Russia will be a vast empty space – maybe not a place you will want to visit. Perhaps, if you read this far, you now realize how influential demographics are to the travel industry. It will become even more important in the future.
