CategoryPeter Zeihan [Zeihan on Geopolitics]

• Europe can be broken into four pieces: France and the Scandinavian countries, Germany and its surrounding countries, Spain and Portugal, and the Orthodox world (Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia).
• France and the Scandinavian countries were late to industrialization, but they have proven far better at adapting to it due to their geographic advantage of having more “elbow room” and their pronatalist policies.
• The Germano-centric countries have been part of an earlier wave of industrialization before WWII and are heavily urbanized, but there hasn’t been room for children for decades, resulting in an inverted population pyramid.
• Spain and Portugal were very late to industrialization, but their bulge is in their 40s instead of nearing their 60s, giving them at least another 20 years before running out of working age adults.
• Central European countries like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic didn’t start to develop until the 1990s, and their bulge is in their 30s and 40s, giving them another 20-30 years.
• The Orthodox world (Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia) is so fundamentally different in terms of population numbers that it requires separate treatment.

You can watch the full Demographics Part 4: The European Breakdown on YouTube – Published January , 2023

• The world has undergone globalization, urbanization and demographic changes since 1945.
• 30 years ago, the Cold War ended and countries previously excluded from the globalized system joined in, leading to increased growth.
• Now, the majority of Baby Boomers are aging into mass retirement, leading to a decrease in markets, capital and working adults.

• New Zealand and the United States are two of the few Advanced countries with a different demographic structure.
• Both countries have a high proportion of young people, due to having good land for agriculture, settler societies with open immigration policies, and internal mobility options.
• This “extra cut” of young people has resulted in a temporary hiccup in their demographics, before the Millennials mature and become capital rich.
• This phenomenon is unique and unseen in other countries, which are instead aging into permanent demographic, economic and political decline.

You can watch the full Demographics Part 3: The Xer Cut by Peter Zeihan on YouTube – Published December 30, 2022