Demographics

[william the wie]

While overdone by people such as H S Dent jr. most consumption is driven by age and sex. A flaw in almost economic projections is that birthrates among women with rising or first world income and access to birth control tend towards an average of 1.6 births.

(I did the research myself for myself using the "Pocket World in Figures" to check anecdotal comments that horse and other mammal breeders operate on the principle that the dam provides 60% of inheritance. As to why women operate on an assumption of 62.5% human maternal inheritance [1/1.6=0.625 I have not a clue.)

But since offspring are such a massive driver of consumption by parents and grandparents deflation in the developed world seems likely to break out soon.

 

[waltky]

Melting in with the pot...

Why Largest US Ethnic Group Vanished from American Culture
October 19th, 2015 - People with German ancestry have long dominated the U.S. melting pot yet their stamp on American culture — once so proud and robust — seems to have all but disappeared.

There are more than 49 million Americans — 16 percent of the population — with German ancestry, according to Ancestry and Ethnicity in America, which used data from the 2010 Census and the 2006-2010 American Community Survey. At the turn of the century, just before the United States entered World War I, German Americans accounted for about 10 percent of the population and their presence was keenly felt. “They were very proud and they clung to their culture very strongly. They still spoke German everywhere…They were almost arrogantly proud of what they thought was a superior German culture and a lot of them didn’t want to integrate and assimilate in the United States,” said Erik Kirschbaum, author of Burning Beethoven: The Eradication of German Culture in the United States during World War I. “They wanted to preserve their culture and keep it intact as long as they could.”

The annual Steuben Parade, in New York celebrates German-American culture and is billed as a symbol of friendship between the two countries.​

German immigrants flocked to New York and Chicago, and residents in numerous small Midwestern towns spoke German almost exclusively. German-language newspapers, theaters and churches flourished. In some of these areas, the German influence was so pervasive that other non-German settlers ended up learning German so they could communicate with fellow residents. Germans helped establish General Electric and designed New York’s Brooklyn Bridge. They dominated the beer industry and that influence lingers in name brands like Busch, Miller and Pabst. The situation took a dark turn for German Americans when the United States entered World War I. Suddenly, as anti-German hysteria swept the country, America’s largest, most powerful minority was considered suspect. “A lot of people thought the country was filled with spies and saboteurs and actually 30 Germans were killed by mobs and lynch mobs,” said Kirschbaum, whose own grandfather grew up speaking German but refused to speak in the language in his later years.

Dormitory for interned Germans at Fort Douglas, Utah.​

Shortly after declaring war on Germany, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson required about 250,000 German-born men — aged fourteen and older — to register their address and employment at their local post office. Within a year, that order was expanded to include women. About 6,000 of these people were arrested and 2,000 of them, who were deemed “dangerous”, were sent to internment camps. German language books were taken out of schools and libraries and burned by so-called patriotic organizations that wanted to make sure German was eradicated from the American landscape. Kirschbaum says German Americans, who saw Germany as their mother and America as their wife, felt they had to make a choice. “They suddenly realized they can’t be both German and American,” he said. “And after the war, a lot of them felt they had to assimilate, there was no choice and a lot of them did. A lot of them became thoroughly American. They stopped speaking German. They stopped teaching their children German. They stopped reading German newspapers and they became whole-hearted Americans.”

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See also:

Why So Many US Koreans Run Dry Cleaners While Arabs Are Grocers
October 15th, 2015 - In the United States, Koreans are 34 times more likely than other immigrant groups to run dry cleaners, while Gujarati-speaking Indians are 108 times more likely to manage motels.

Economists William Kerr, of Harvard Business School, and Martin Mandroff, of the Swedish Competition Authority, studied the relationship between ethnicity, occupational choice, and entrepreneurship. They found that ethnic groups in the United States tend to concentrate in certain businesses and that these small, socially-isolated groups attain considerable financial success through this type of concentrated entrepreneurship. According to Kerr and Mandroff, Yemenis are 75 times more likely to own grocery stores than other immigrants, while Greeks tend to concentrate in the restaurant sector, and Middle Eastern immigrants are more likely to own grocery and liquor stores. The researchers say people decide what industry to enter based on their interactions.

Rae Alzaweny, owner of the Iraq Market grocery store, sorts produce in Dearborn, Michigan.

The tendency to cluster around certain industries often results because market interactions — such as with corporate America or in higher education — can prove more challenging for certain members of ethnic groups. Consequently, they rely more on social interactions — with friends, family or people within their ethnic group — to learn new skills and find jobs. This tendency to own their own business is more apparent among some groups. For example, 45 percent of adult Korean males are self-employed. That’s three times higher than the 15 percent self-employed rate of the general adult male immigrant population.

“From Social Networks, Ethnicity and Entrepreneurship” by William R. Kerr and Martin Mandorff​

As business owners, these immigrant groups have to rely on their own judgment and they tend to learn from each other. “When socializing during family gatherings and religious/cultural functions, entrepreneurs mentor each other and exchange industry knowledge and professional advice,” the authors wrote. “The more an entrepreneur socializes with other entrepreneurs, the more knowledge is exchanged. Social interaction and production are therefore complementary in the entrepreneurial sector and entrepreneurial productivity increases with the number of friends and family members in that sector.”

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[EdwardBaiamonte]

deflation in the developed world seems likely to break out soon.

dear, care to tell us why you thank that??

 

[waltky]

Chinese birth rate not enough to replenish labor market...

Demographic time bomb continues to tick away in China
Fri, May 19, 2017 - Even after the Chinese government cleared the way for couples to have a second child, working women are reluctant to expand their family — or have any children at all, according to a new survey by Zhaopin.com, one of the nation’s biggest online recruitment Web sites.

About 40 percent of working women without children do not want to have any and about two-thirds of those with a child do not want a second, the poll found. In big cities, such as Beijing or Shanghai, hefty living costs, long work hours and surging expenses linked to raising children have deterred more women from becoming moms. The phenomenon is not unique to China, given the pressures that working women face around the globe. However, it is particularly acute for the nation given its rapidly aging population.

More than three decades of a one-child policy has left the nation with too few young people to support an expanding elderly population, which is eroding competitiveness and weighing on the social welfare system. After announcing a two-child rule in October 2015, officials estimated an increase of 4 million additional births per year through 2020, but last year births increased by just 1.31 million from a year earlier to 17.86 million. That prompted the government to consider measures such as “birth rewards and subsidies” to help encourage more people to have another child.

Yet China remains far from providing incentive packages as seen in Singapore or Germany and a porous safety network offers little help to families who cannot afford children’s education or healthcare. Child-bearing might also lead to real financial or career losses. The survey found that 33 percent of women had their pay cut after giving birth and 36 percent were demoted. Among the top reasons cited for not having kids by the Zhaopin.com survey are “not enough time and energy” and “too expensive to raise children.”

Demographic time bomb continues to tick away in China - Taipei Times