Demographers warn how future demographic changes will impact the United States, its allies and competitors, and geopolitics.
Dallas, Texas – In the Fall 2024 edition of The Catalyst: A Journal of Ideas from the Bush Institute, contributors examine the coming population trends that will reshape the planet. Leading demographers, George W. Bush Institute experts, and other specialists explore how an aging and shrinking population will change the United States, its allies, its main competitors and geopolitics at large.
Nicholas Eberstadt, one of the world’s leading demographers and the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, explains why news of the coming worldwide population crash may not be reason for panic (spoiler alert: humans are almost infinitely adaptable).
Experts such as Jessica Ludwig, Director of Global Policy at the Bush Institute, Feng Wang, professor of sociology at the University of California at Irvine, Alexandra Prokopenko of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, Elisabeth Braw, Senior Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, and Hannah Johnson, Program Manager in Global Policy at the Bush Institute, examine the changes coming in key regions around the world. Ludwig shows why democracies are actually better suited to respond to demographic shifts than autocracies are. Wang shows how disastrous Chinese government policies have caused faster aging and shrinking than in any other great power. Prokopenko maps out the sorry state of Russia today, Braw writes about falling birthrates in Europe, and Johnson discusses how the great success of PEPFAR in helping Africans survive HIV/AIDS has created a new set of challenges.
Catalyst authors also shed light on the challenges facing the United States. Laura Collins, Director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative at the Bush Institute, explains the increased importance of immigration in an aging and shrinking America. John Scott, director of the retirement savings project at the Pew Charitable Trust, explains how Americans must start investing more now if the country hopes to cope with the coming gray wave.
Cullum Clark, Director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative at the Bush Institute, maps out a comprehensive strategy for the economic, infrastructure, and social changes the U.S. will need to make to adapt. Senior Vice President for Strategy and Operations at Texas 2036, Justin Coppedge, describes how Texas seems set to keep growing and how the state can benefit from its growth. To read the full edition of The Catalyst visit https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/the-great-gray-wave.
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