Posts Tagged ‘immigration’
“By improving health, empowering women, population growth comes down”*…
… And increasingly across the globe, starting in the developed world, we’ve been doing a better job of that. Indeed, some are beginning to worry about a kind of problem that the modern world has never faced– depopulation.
History Today offers a fascinating snapshot…
During the 1930s and early 1940s, many Americans held off on starting families because of the economic insecurity of the Great Depression and uncertainty of World War II. But the prosperous postwar era led to an increase of births between 1946 and 1964 that gave the baby boomer generation its nickname. Over this 19-year period, the booming birth rate helped the U.S. population grow by more than 50%. The country’s demographic makeup shifted so rapidly that by 1960, there were 64.2 million Americans under age 18, out of 180 million overall — a whopping 36% of the population. For context, in 2022, an estimated 22.4% of the U.S. population was under 18.
General fertility rates in the baby boom era peaked in 1957 at 122.9 live births for every 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 — that’s 4.3 million babies that year alone. The general fertility rate took a nosedive throughout the 1960s as the birth control pill became more widely available and women entered the workforce at much higher rates. By 1970, the general fertility rate was 87.9, and the much smaller Generation X was well underway.
The baby boomer generation didn’t reproduce at the same rapid clip as their parents, but because there were so many of them, they still produced a lot of offspring. Indeed, 1990 — the year all those 1957 babies turned 33 — was another banner year for births, with 4.2 million millennials entering the world, despite a general fertility rate of just 70.9…
Consider these population pyramids from the U.S. Census Bureau:
This picture is of course in aggregate: some locales (e.g., Utah) continue to grow and are “younger”; others, like Alexander County, Illinois are much “older.” And globally, the picture is even more mixed:
The global population reached nearly 8.2 billion by mid-2024 and is expected to grow by another two billion over the next 60 years, peaking at around 10.3 billion in the mid-2080s. It will then fall to around 10.2 billion, which is 700 million lower than expected a decade ago. However, changes in global population are uneven and the demographic landscape is evolving, with rapid population growth in some places and rapid ageing in others…
… The world’s overall fertility rates are dropping, with women having one child fewer on average than they did around 1990.
In more than half of all countries and areas, the average number of live births per woman is below 2.1 – the level required for a population to maintain a constant size.
Meanwhile, nearly a fifth of all countries and areas, including China, Italy, the Republic of Korea and Spain, now have “ultra-low fertility,” with fewer than 1.4 live births per woman over a lifetime. As of 2024, population size has peaked in 63 countries and areas, including China, Germany, Japan and the Russian Federation, and the total population of this group is projected to decline by 14 per cent over the next thirty years…
While the slow growth or decline of populations is occurring mainly in high-income countries, rapid population growth will occur in low-income and lower-middle-income countries.
Specifically, Angola, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, and Somalia, very rapid growth is projected, with their total population doubling between 2024 and 2054.
This population growth will increase demand for resources, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia and, combined with poorly managed urbanisation and rising living standards, it will worsen environmental impacts.
Climate change, a major challenge, affects these countries the most, where many rely on agriculture – and food insecurity is prevalent.
In countries including India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan and the United States [our inherent decline offset to some extent by immigration… at least until now], population is also expected to increase through 2054 and could potentially peak in the second half of the century or later…
Implicit assumptions of a growing population underlie many– if not most– of the decisions we’ve made about everything from social policies (e.g., social security) to business plans (e.g., growing markets).
Populations grow for some combination of three reasons: fertility is above replacement level, people live longer, and/or immigration swells the ranks. For quite a while, the U.S. was hitting on all three cylinders; more lately, on the latter two. But recently, life expectancy has stalled.
Immigration is currently strong (and, as noted above, keeping U.S. population growth positive), but it’s looking increasingly uncertain: political energy to restrict (indeed, to undo) immigration is high, even as the pressures of climate change and political upheaval are increasing numbers of people from around the world hoping to find a home in the U.S.
If, as Comte is said to have suggested, demography is destiny, then what is ours? “In 1960, more than a third of the U.S. population was under 18.”
Apposite: “Why people over the age of 55 are the new problem generation,” gift article from The Economist
* Bill Gates
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As we dig into demographics, we might send thoughtful birthday greetings to Robinson Jeffers; he was born on this date in 1887. A poet renowned both for his longer (narrative and epic) verse and his shorter work, he was an icon of the environmental movement. His philosophy of “inhumanism” argued that transcending conflict required human concerns to be de-emphasized in favor of the boundless whole.
“Without debatement further, more or less, / He should the bearers put to sudden death, / Not shriving time allow’d.”*…
“Cell suicide” is inherently self-destructive, and yet it’s an essential and productive process in complex organisms. How did cells evolve a process to end their own lives? As Veronique Greenwood reports, recent research suggests it first arose, first arose billions of years ago… but why?…
It can be hard to tell, at first, when a cell is on the verge of self-destruction.
It appears to be going about its usual business, transcribing genes and making proteins. The powerhouse organelles called mitochondria are dutifully churning out energy. But then a mitochondrion receives a signal, and its typically placid proteins join forces to form a death machine.
They slice through the cell with breathtaking thoroughness. In a matter of hours, all that the cell had built lies in ruins. A few bubbles of membrane are all that remains.
“It’s really amazing how fast, how organized it is,” said Aurora Nedelcu, an evolutionary biologist at the University of New Brunswick who has studied the process in algae.
Apoptosis, as this process is known, seems as unlikely as it is violent. And yet some cells undergo this devastating but predictable series of steps to kill themselves on purpose. When biologists first observed it, they were shocked to find self-induced death among living, striving organisms. And although it turned out that apoptosis is a vital creative force for many multicellular creatures, to a given cell it is utterly ruinous. How could a behavior that results in a cell’s sudden death evolve, let alone persist?…
The story in full: “Cellular Self-Destruction May Be Ancient. But Why?“, from @vero_greenwood in @QuantaMagazine.
* Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act 5, Scene 2)
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As we appreciate apoptosis, we might send healthy birthday greetings to Lillian Wald; she was born on this date in 1867. A nurse, humanitarian, political reformer, and author, she was instrumental in establishing a nationwide system of nurses in public schools. Known as “the Angel of Henry Street” (for her founding and running of the Henry Street Settlement in New York City), she directed the Henry Street Visiting Nurse Service, while at the same time tirelessly opposing political and social corruption. She helped initiate the revision of child labor laws, improved housing conditions in tenement districts, drove the enactment of pure food laws, championed and improved education for the mentally handicapped, and led the passage of enlightened immigration regulations.
“One bullion cube… one Concord grape… one Philly cheese-steak… and a jar of garlic pickles! No one will want to kiss me after these, eh, Smithers?”*…
Kunwar Khuldune Shahid explains how immigration patterns and global politics — plus a bit of serendipity — intertwined to make Philadelphia’s iconic sandwich a hit in a 13-million-resident Pakistani megalopolis…
… [Chef Mazhar] Hussain has worked at some of the most high-profile restaurants in Lahore — Monal, Tuscany Courtyard, Chaayé Khana and Café Aylanto, among others — covering a wide range of cuisines. His experience at Philly’s Steak Sandwich, though, has been unique. It’s a smaller restaurant than those, he says, and the guests come from all walks of life. The one thing that connects them: “The steak sandwich is extremely popular with everyone.”
Philly’s Steak Sandwich sits on a small highway apart from Johar Town’s main food centers, atop a hair salon. The shop fights for customers with a biryani restaurant across the street and buzzes all evening with motorbikes and cars jammed into the cramped parking spaces. The cheesesteak is especially popular among nearby students, who can enjoy it for PKR 579, or a little over two bucks.
…
Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city and the capital of the historic Punjab region, is considered the country’s food hub (although citizens of Karachi loudly dispute that claim). Its location at the crossroads of the many empires to have ruled over the Indian subcontinent, from the Mughals to the British, has added multicultural layers to Lahori heritage and culture. This is reflected in the city’s food, which blends Persian and Afghan flavors, a combination we now deem synonymous with the cuisine of North India — which Lahore was an integral part of before the 1947 partition created what is today called Pakistan, in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent.
That Indic syncretism, which Lahore has oozed with for centuries, is today introducing a new cuisine to the city’s taste buds: Philadelphian. But while Philly’s Steak Sandwich might be the first to put our city’s renowned sandwich on local billboards, Lahore’s love-in with the cheesesteak is, in fact, decades old…
More fission than fusion: “The Amazing Story of How Philly Cheesesteaks Became Huge in Lahore, Pakistan,” from @khuldune in @PhiladelphiaMag.
* “Montgomery Burns,” in The Simpsons
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As we muse on migration, we might recall that it was on this date in 1959 that the St. Lawrence Seaway opened. A system of locks, canals, and channels in Canada and the United States, it permits oceangoing vessels to travel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes of North America– as far inland as Duluth, Minnesota, at the western end of Lake Superior. The Seaway handles 40–50 million tons of cargo annually, about 50% of of which travels to and from international ports in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
“The loudest of doomsayers, so often, carry the weightiest of sin”*…
A quick look at how some of the grimmest prognoses for the pandemic’s effect have turned out…
When misfortunes multiplied during the coronavirus pandemic, observers seized on a four-letter word signaling end of days for the largest state with one-eighth the U.S. population and 14% of its gross domestic product. “California doom: Staggering $54 billion deficit looms,” the Associated Press concluded a year ago in May. “California Is Doomed,” declared Business Insider two months earlier. “Is California doomed to keep burning?” queried the New Republic in October. California is “Doomed” because of rising sea levels, according to an April EcoNews Report. Bulletins of people leaving the world’s fifth-biggest economy for lower-cost states because of high taxes and too much regulation stifling business continue unabated.
No one anticipated the latest data readout showing the Golden State has no peers among developed economies for expanding GDP, creating jobs, raising household income, manufacturing growth, investment in innovation, producing clean energy and unprecedented wealth through its stocks and bonds. All of which underlines Governor Gavin Newsom’s announcement last month of the biggest state tax rebate in American history.
By adding 1.3 million people to its non-farm payrolls since April last year — equal to the entire workforce of Nevada — California easily surpassed also-rans Texas and New York. At the same time, California household income increased $164 billion, almost as much as Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania combined, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. No wonder California’s operating budget surplus, fueled by its surging economy and capital gains taxes, swelled to a record $75 billion.
If anything, Covid-19 accelerated California’s record productivity. Quarterly revenue per employee of the publicly traded companies based in the state climbed to an all-time high of $1.5 million in May, 63% greater than its similar milestone a decade ago, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The rest of the U.S. was nothing special, with productivity among those members of the Russell 3000 Index, which is made up of both large and small companies, little changed during the past 10 years.
While pundits have long insisted California policies are bad for business, reality belies them. In a sign of investor demand, the weight of California companies in the benchmark S&P 500 Index increased 3 percentage points since a year ago, the most among all states, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Faith in California credit was similarly superlative, with the weight of corporate bonds sold by companies based in the state rising the most among all states, to 12.5 percentage points from 11.7 percentage points, according to the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Corporate Bond Index. Translation: Investors had the greatest confidence in California companies during the pandemic.
The most trusted measure of economic strength says California is the world-beater among democracies. The state’s gross domestic product increased 21% during the past five years, dwarfing No. 2 New York (14%) and No. 3 Texas (12%), according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gains added $530 billion to the Golden State, 30% more than the increase for New York and Texas combined and equivalent to the entire economy of Sweden. Among the five largest economies, California outperforms the U.S., Japan and Germany with a growth rate exceeded only by China.
…
Even with the economic disruptions caused by the pandemic, California cemented its position as the No. 1 state for global trade, with its Los Angeles and Long Beach ports seeing growth that led all U.S. rivals for the first time in nine years in 2020. Much has been made of the state reporting its first yearly loss in population, or 182,000 last year. Had it not been for the Trump administration preventing new visas, depriving as many as 150,000 people from moving to California from other countries annually, the 2020 outcome would have been more favorable.
Even so, Republicans, opposed to Newsom’s policies favoring immigration, criminal justice reform and greater benefits for housing, health and child care, want voters to decide whether he should be replaced in a potential recall election later this year. Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, a Republican who is among those running to succeed him, said Newsom, a Democrat, hurt the state’s small businesses.
That’s not what the data shows. The 373 California-based companies in the Russell 2000 Index, which includes small-cap companies across the U.S., appreciated 39% the past two years and 85% since 2016, beating the benchmark’s 34% and 67%, respectively. The same California companies reported revenue growth of 56% the past five years, dwarfing the benchmark’s 34%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. More important, California companies invested 16% of their revenues in R&D, or their future, when the rest of the U.S. put aside just 1%.
Investing in the future is California’s way, the opposite of doom.
The Golden State has no peers when it comes to expanding GDP, raising household income, investing in innovation, and a host of other key metrics: “California Defies Doom With No. 1 U.S. Economy.” From Matthew Winkler (@Matthew_Winkler).
Someone ought to publish a book about the doomsayers who keep publishing books about the end of publishing
Evgeny Morozov
* Ta-Nehisi Coates
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As we check the facts, we might recall that it was on this date in 1978 that the Rainbow Flag was flown for the first time during the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade. Created by Gilbert Baker, it has become a sign of LGBTQ pride worldwide.
“What we need in this country is a general improvement in eating”*…
A Mexican official examines chili powder at an American factory, Gebhardt Mexican Foods Company
Gumbo. Chile con queso. California roll. Spaghetti and meatballs.
The names are as familiar as household brands. Yet how much do you know about these dishes? Based on the names alone, with their roots in other languages and other cultures, each dish sounds like an import. In some ways, they are. But each dish also morphed and adapted to its new environment, transforming into something uniquely American.
Some transformed through industrialization. Another required the ingenuity of chefs willing to break from tradition. One adapted, and continues to adapt, to the dizzying constellation of cultures that is New Orleans…
How four dishes with roots in other lands tell a story of immigration and transformation: “Made in America.”
* H.L. Mencken (who arguably got, per the article linked above, what he asked for)
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As we dig in, we might send tasty birthday greetings to Ettore “Hector” Boiardi; he was born on this date in 1897. An Italian immigrant who became a successful chef (at The Plaza and the Greenbrier), he opened his first restaurant, Il Giardino d’Italia (The Garden of Italy) in Cleveland in 1926. The following year he met Maurice and Eva Weiner, patrons of his restaurant and owners of a local self-service grocery store chain; they helped him market his spaghetti sauce in jars… and the heat-and-eat Italian food empire that became known as Chef Boy-Ar-Dee was born. Boiardi became a wealthy man– and something of a celebrity via his appearances in television commercials for his products.
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