DWD20200322

David's Time With Peter F. Drucker 2020.3.22 In Japan and in Southern Europe, population is already peaking as it is in Germany. In the United States it will still grow for another twenty to twenty-five years, though the entire growth after the year 2015 will be in people fifty-five years and older. But more important than absolute numbers is the age distribution within the population. Of those 20-odd million Italians by the year 2080, a very small number will be under fifteen, and a very large number——at least one-third of the population——well above sixty In Japan the disproportion between younger people and people above any traditional retirement age will be equally great if not greater. In the United States, the young population is already growing much more slowly than the older population, past traditional retirement. Still, up to the year 2015 or so, the number of young people will still be growing in absolute numbers in the United States. But then it is likely to go down and quite rapidly. Birthrates can change, and can do so quite fast, as the American experience after World War Ⅱ proved. But even if the birthrates in the developed world were to turn up drastically, it would take twenty years or so before these new babies would reach the age at which they join the labor force. There is nothing——except unprecedentedly massive immigration——that can prevent a sharp drop in the labor force of traditional age(i.e., below sisty or sixty-five) in the developed world——in the United States after 2025 or so, in the rest of the developed world much earlier. ——《Management Challenges for the 21st Century · Chapter2》(Peter F.Drucker,1999)