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Posts Tagged ‘Demography’

Tiger vs. Dragon: A Demographic Comparison of India and China

One of the biggest story lines of the 21st century is going to be the continued economic rise of China and India. According to the World Bank, both countries grew at a rate of 9.1% in 2009. Here’s a chart of their growth since the 1960s:
While their recent growth has been roughly similar, China and India also boast the two largest populations on the planet. But a new study by RAND shows the giants heading down different demographic paths. From the abstract:

Demographic contrasts between China and India will become more pronounced in the coming decades, and these differences hold implications for the countries’ relative economic prospects. China’s population is larger than India’s, but India’s population is expected to surpass China’s by 2025. China’s population is older than India’s and beginning to age rapidly, which may constrain economic growth, whereas an increasing percentage of India’s population will consist of working-age people through 2030, giving India an important demographic advantage. How much these demographic changes affect economic growth will depend on several other factors, including the infrastructure, education system, and health care systems in each country and how well each country integrates women into its workforce.


How the "Accident Hump" Tells Us Boys Are Maturing Faster

We’ve known for a while that girls have been maturing at a faster rate for much of the last 100 years, if not longer. Disease reduction and better nutrition are thought to be the biggest factors. But what about boys? Researchers have long thought they were maturing faster too. But lacking the obvious (monthly) data, the evidence proved tricky.
Now, a German researcher believes he’s found the answer by looking at, of all things, male teenage death rates. When girls hit puberty, they get their period. When boys hit puberty, they start doing stupid stuff, hence what’s called “The accident hump,” a spike in mortality rates that coincides with the peak of male hormone production during puberty. That hump it seems has been shifting to earlier and earlier in life.
The new study, by Joshua Goldstein, director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany, finds that the age of sexual maturity for boys has been decreasing by about 2.5 months each decade, since at least the middle of the 18th century.