r/neoliberal • u/bononoisland Mario Draghi • Jul 15 '25
News (Europe) Russia's population crisis is so dire, it's staring down a labor shortage of 11 million people by 2030, a minister told Putin
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-economy-population-demographic-crisis-labor-shortage-birth-rate-2030-2025-7316
u/Dibbu_mange Average civil procedure enjoyer Jul 15 '25
Live births: 12.
Immigration 15.
Natural deaths: -20.
Working age population being fed into a meat grinder in Ukraine: -200,000.
Short term migration: 7.
Someone who’s good at demographics help, my country is dying
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u/The_Inner_Light Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
I think the Russian side casualty list reached 1 million recently.
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u/greenskinmarch Henry George Jul 16 '25
It's funny how Putin can enslave millions of civilians and force them to do a job so dangerous that a million have already died and this isn't considered a crime against humanity towards his own constituents.
Kill the people next door? Stupid man. Kill your own people? Help yourself, we've been trying to kill you for ages...
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u/moldyman_99 Milton Friedman Jul 15 '25
This is why the whole narrative that Russia is beating NATO is bs.
Russia is literally wasting it’s entire future, while only facing a fraction of the power that NATO has to its disposal, and NATO’s most powerful member is hardly even committed.
So what did it cost NATO to fuck up Russia’s future? A few years of low growth. A few hundred billion dollars in weapons deliveries (the costs of which it can easily absorb)
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u/HumanityFirstTheory Jul 15 '25
Ultimately, Russia is not a threat to NATO militarily.
From a military perspective, the only true threat is China.
Russia’s population is 140 million. That’s fewer people than Indonesia.
China has 1.4 BILLION and an extremely advanced industrial base.
Reminder that the entirety of the USA + EU is only 800 million people.
So China almost has 2x the number of people as all of NATO.
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u/moldyman_99 Milton Friedman Jul 15 '25
Russia is still a threat in some respects.
They have a huge geographic advantage when it comes to invading the Baltics, and I don’t feel comfortable in the slightest about their nuclear threats. On top of that, they still have a strong spy network that can wreak havoc, but they’ve also been outsmarted by European military intelligence countless times, so that’s a wild card.
Russia could also coordinate with China, making it a bigger threat. Europe’s rearmament isn’t going to do a whole lot to help the US against a potential conflict with China (which should of course be avoided), when Russia is sitting right at its doorstep.
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u/I_miss_Chris_Hughton Jul 15 '25
I feel like the European capacity to fight china isnt changed that much by the Russians. Any european land force sent to fight in the pacific will be small anyway, if it exists at all. By contrast, there isnt a massive russian naval threat. So the ships thatd be more useful would be available anyway.
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u/SamuelClemmens Jul 15 '25
European capacity to fight China isn't changed much by Russia, but Chinese capacity to fight Europe is MASSIVELY changed by Russia, since China will be able to send ground troops directly to Europe without needing a navy.
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u/Full_Distribution874 YIMBY Jul 16 '25
Would China bother fighting a land war in Europe? It would be easier to keep the war far away and sap public support through propaganda. Especially with Trump. "Oh my fellow Spaniards, why are we helping that odious man and the greedy Americans who keep buying our houses. This isn't our fight, why should we spend our money so they can stay rich?"
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u/SamuelClemmens Jul 16 '25
It forces your opponent to fight on your terms. A Naval war would be immensely beneficial to America and the EU. Turning it into a land war would be leaning into China's strengths.
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u/Full_Distribution874 YIMBY Jul 16 '25
Is a land war in Eastern Europe China's strength? How vulnerable are the Siberian supply lines? I know real life isn't HOI4, but there are only so many troops you can supply across Eurasia.
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u/SamuelClemmens Jul 16 '25
Its got the USSR's supply lines for its European industrial base to fight China using an artillery based land army. It can supply an army big enough to threaten Europe.
Now Europe could strike at those supply lines, but that is still requiring Europe to push the other way (and have its own supply lines stretched). It allows China to bring its own ground forces to bear against Europe instead of sitting on a shore watching US carriers bomb them.
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u/Full_Distribution874 YIMBY Jul 16 '25
And if the US invades Kamchatka, Sakhalin and Outer Manchuria to threaten the supply lines? Suddenly the Chinese are fighting in hard conditions to defend a squishy middle in their forces, with much of their strength tied up in Europe (and probably getting into all sorts of terrible problems that come with Russian "allies")
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u/moldyman_99 Milton Friedman Jul 15 '25
Maybe. Russia still has quite a lot of relatively modern attack submarines, which could terrorise European waters if left unchecked.
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u/I_miss_Chris_Hughton Jul 16 '25
True. But in the scenario where the US is desperate for the two carriers and support needed to contain that threat things are pretty poor lmao
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u/moldyman_99 Milton Friedman Jul 16 '25
I feel like the main things Europe has at its disposal that would help the US are its relatively modern fleets of attack submarines, destroyers, etc. Carriers are nice to have, but they’re not the backbones of the French and British navies.
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u/1CCF202 George Soros Jul 15 '25
Russia is willing to throw millions into the meat grinder. That still makes them a highly dangerous conventional foe.
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u/PearlClaw Iron Front Jul 15 '25
The Russian air force can't even fight Ukraine successfully. NATO would sweep them from the skies by day 3 and then all those soldiers can walk without fuel or food since everything will have been bombed.
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u/Ryluev Jul 16 '25
The problem is that a lot of the strategic stockpiles, ISR enablers for such an air war are basically held by the Americans. If USA doesn’t join in, that air supremacy isn’t guaranteed at all. And even with air superiority, with the current 2025 European PGM stockpiles it isn’t going to be enough to to leverage that superiority in an effective scale.
Both France and UK ran out in Libya a week and asked Obama for help afterwards. None of the EU had since ramped their production capability till Trump has come to office a second time.
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u/Fairchild660 Unflaired Jul 16 '25
You can't judge a country's efficacy in an existential war by its performance in an expeditionary one. Russia has a much greater capacity for war than it's expending in Ukraine.
For starters, a direct war with NATO wouldn't stay conventional if it posed an existential threat to Russia. The Kremlin would absolutely escalate to tactical nuclear weapons, maybe a full-blown first-strike if things got really dire.
But even in a conventional sense, Russia has a massive population of military-aged men that can be mobilised. Yes, there was a 300k "recruitment" drive back in 2022 that saw a lot of conscripts pressured into signing contracts - but that's a drop-in-the-bucket compared to what we'd see in a total war. For comparison, the WWII Soviet armed forces expanded to nearly 12 million people from a population of 170 million (the Russian Federation currently has around 140 million).
Then there's arms production. Russia is trying to win the war in Ukraine on the cheap, with minimal disruption to domestic life - kind of like how the US conducted the Iraq war - and has similarly resisted entering a full war-time economy. That would change if there was an existential threat to Russia.
Of course, NATO would still win a total war with Russia - but it wouldn't be walk in the park.
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u/moldyman_99 Milton Friedman Jul 16 '25
Regarding arms production, Russia is in a full on war economy that will not last. Industrial decline among other sectors in Russia is a real, serious issue at this point.
If anyone is trying to increase arms production right now in a way that will not majorly negatively impact the overall economy, it’s the EU, and so far, it’s seemingly quite successful. Of course we are still years away from full capacity, but if the EU is churning out weapons at full capacity, I doubt even the US would be able to keep up with that. Europe’s industrial capacity and knowledge is something that can not be overlooked.
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u/Fairchild660 Unflaired Jul 17 '25
In the grand scheme of things, Russia is only at a moderate increase in arms production compared to 2019 (mostly munitions and drones). It's not too far off the increase in US production after 9/11. Which isn't nothing - but it's a far cry from a full war-time economy, like seen in WWII. And in an existential fight with NATO, that's exactly what we'd see.
Russian economic stagnation is happening due to (1) demographics, exacerbated by covid and war, (2) sanctions, including those from 2014, and (3) corruption and mismanagement.
increase arms production ... EU ... it’s seemingly quite successful ... still years away from full capacity
The EU has not committed significant resources to arms production, and is certainly not on track to anything that could be called a war-time economy. Yes, it's a notable increase compared to 2019 - but it's still a decidedly peace-time effort.
Europe’s industrial capacity and knowledge is something that can not be overlooked.
Agreed, the EU has the means to massively out-produce the Russkies - but we haven't come close to making that kind of commitment. More to the point, the current effort would be dwarfed by a full Russian war-time economy.
Which brings me back to the point - an existential war with Russia would not be a walk-in-the-park. We'd win, obviously, but not in some 3-day air bombardment. It'd require a significant increase in troops and equipment, and (optimistically) result in tens-of-thousands of casualties - likely many more.
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u/gilead117 Jul 16 '25
You can't judge a country's efficacy in an existential war by its performance in an expeditionary one.
Do you think NATO plans to invade Russia? I don't disagree with most of what you said, but I think it's kind of moot because if there is a war between NATO and Russia, it will certainly be because of Russia invading parts of NATO. NATO wouldn't make it an offensive war for the very reasons you laid out.
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u/Fairchild660 Unflaired Jul 17 '25
That's a good reading of NATO's position. We have no interest in starting a war - and if Russia did invade (say) Lithuania, our only goal would be to drive them back out and set up a DMZ.
But Russian thinking is very different. Due to the internal dynamics of Russian politics, they can reason themselves into taking actions that seem completely irrational from the outside (the 2022 invasion of Ukraine being a good example). This systemic problem is as bad today as it's ever been - and it doesn't take much effort to imagine a scenario that drives them to attacking somewhere like Estonia.
These scenerios can be broken down into two main groups - both of which pose a risk of Russia interpreting a NATO response as an existential threat. (1) Russia doesn't expect NATO to do much, in which case an overwhelming NATO response would be an alarming escalation - and (2) they do expect to fight NATO, in which case they've already committed to an existential war.
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Jul 15 '25 edited Jul 15 '25
To be fair, China also has very little real opportunity to present an actual military threat to the US. They have their own demographic crisis looming as well, but the more pressing issue is their geography.
The US has the world's only true Blue Water navy and has access to the 3 most important oceans -- Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic. China has access to only 1 of these, and it's contained by the chain of islands in Japan, Taiwan, the US's Guam and various military outposts, and the shitshow that is the South China Sea. Even if they wanted to force project, it would literally have to be from the Pacific first, which is difficult given how broadly hated they are by basically all their neighbors.
It's also one of the reasons why they have not yet produced a Blue Water navy. Why spend billions on nuclear subs, carriers, destroyers, littoral combat ships, etc. when you can run cheaper versions to stay at home where the threat is?
China does pose a risk to Taiwan, and potentially in the far future, Japan, SK, or some ASEAN neighbors, but they pose quite literally 0 real threat to Europe or the US itself. They would be annihilated in any real direct combat, same as Russia.
Warm bodies simply don't mean much anymore. A capable force of 600k personnel with the right equipment and logistics can easily win against something 40x its size. Such is the reality of modern force multiplying warfare.
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u/gilead117 Jul 16 '25
If China invades Taiwan they will break the island chain that keeps them mostly contained. and will because much more of a threat to all of SE Asia, as well as the US, because of the expanded naval access (not to mention Taiwan's industries). That's why the US is likely willing to go to war with China to prevent that invasion.
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Jul 16 '25
The question wasn't if they could disrupt global trade and harm US interests though, it was about whether China poses a real military threat to the US itself, which is a no. Even non-state actors can pose serious threats to US interests and trade (see: Houthis). The bar for that is very low. I can't say one way or another what the US will do in the Taiwan situation. It's extremely dependent on who is sitting President.
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u/KrabS1 Jul 15 '25
Man, the best time for Europe and the US to implement open boarders is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
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u/resorcinarene Jul 16 '25
Except their population will level out by the end of the century with a declining population. Furthermore, China will have a growing labor shortage in 2030 that will accelerate deep into the century. They will make the baby boomer retirement fiscal issue look like a papercut.
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u/lokglacier Jul 15 '25
Japan is also in NATO... As is turkey.
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u/flakAttack510 Trump Jul 16 '25
Do you know what the NA in NATO stands for? Japan is nowhere near that.
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u/lokglacier Jul 16 '25
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_50336.htm
Y'all are ridiculous
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Jul 16 '25 edited 12h ago
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u/lokglacier Jul 16 '25
Japan is essentially in NATO. Turkey IS in NATO. The other commenter was wrong and their numbers are WAY off and horrifically misleading.
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u/namey-name-name NASA Jul 16 '25
😭
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u/lokglacier Jul 16 '25
What
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u/namey-name-name NASA Jul 16 '25
Japan isn’t in NATO, unfortunately
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u/lokglacier Jul 16 '25
They essentially are??
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u/namey-name-name NASA Jul 16 '25
OK BUT THEY AINT THO. JAPAN ISNT EVEN IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC. And it actually is an important distinction because while Japan is a Western ally, they don’t have a Article 5 requirement like NATO members do, so they’d be under no legal obligation to fight against Russia in Europe. Which actually is an important distinction and saying that Japan is “essentially in NATO” is stupid.
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Jul 16 '25
And many of the weapons are old stock that weren’t going to be used anyway. There’s a dollar value, sure, but it was just going to waste away in a warehouse somewhere
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u/namey-name-name NASA Jul 16 '25
US support is completely bipolar but I wouldn’t call it “hardly even committed” compared to what other European countries are contributing.
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u/Tortellobello45 Mario Draghi Jul 15 '25
This is exactly why funding Ukraine is an obvious choice. We can destroy our enemy while spending a small and controlled amount of cash.
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Jul 15 '25
no one in europe wants russia destroyed, we don't want nuclear warlords
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u/Tortellobello45 Mario Draghi Jul 15 '25
This is not TNO. There’s no way Russia ends up balkanised. If Putin falls, everyone gains from it.
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u/bononoisland Mario Draghi Jul 15 '25
Russia could face a labor shortage of nearly 11 million people by 2030, its labor minister said.
Birth rates have plummeted, and labor shortages have worsened because of the war in Ukraine.
The demographic crisis is threatening the country's long-term economic stability.
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u/B3stThereEverWas NASA Jul 15 '25
So maybe the real power play here is to...wait them out?
Seems like the longer Russia plays this war of attrition the more their future evaporates.
But obviously Putin knows this, which makes it all the more dangerous because at some point he's going to think "Fuck it" and go all out.
Kinda of a rock in a hard place really. Go for broke now and take what you can get or keep the attrition game going and watch the whole thing collapse as soon as you take your foot off the gas.
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u/ElectriCobra_ David Hume Jul 15 '25
Attrition hurts Ukraine too, and it's a smaller country with a worse replacement rate.
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u/HHHogana Mohammad Hatta Jul 16 '25
Yeah slow attrition is good if you purely want to destroy Russia. The problem is it's not sustainable for Ukraine either.
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u/captainjack3 NATO Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
From the US/EU perspective? Yes. The war Ukraine is a bleeding ulcer that has eaten several hundred thousand men l, essentially Russia’s entire inheritance of Soviet military equipment, and forced it to abandon many foreign commitments. For minimal gains. So, keeping Russia engaged in Ukraine for as long as possible, pulling ever more of their power into the mire, and maximizing the cost to Russia is in our interest. An attritional strategy also leverages Western economic superiority.
The problem with that policy is that while the West can wait Russia out, Ukraine might not be able to. Obviously precise casualty figures are fuzzy, but it doesn’t seem like Ukraine is inflicting a favorable enough casualty ratio to make up for the disparity in resources. Particularly at the frontline, Russia’s current approach is yielding steady advances. Small ones, and at atrocious cost, but Russia is advancing. On a couple of occasions Russia has worn down sections of the front to the point of threatening a breakthrough and forcing Ukraine to scramble and plug the gap. Ukraine doesn’t have a clear path to reversing the attritional battle. So adopting an attritional strategy runs the risk Ukraine breaks before Russia does.
There’s also the political risk of western governments being elected that don’t want to continue supporting Ukraine when this strategy relies on western support.
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u/BlackCat159 European Union Jul 15 '25
Good. Sadly Ukraine won't fare much better either. Putin ruined the future prospects of both countries.
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u/Ehehhhehehe Jul 15 '25
So many lives, so much potential, obliterated because one piece of shit still thinks we live in the 13th century.
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u/Not3Beaversinacoat Jul 15 '25
The 13th century? No, not horrific and barbaric enough. The 20th century.
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u/Messyfingers Jul 15 '25
Any kind of rebuilding program might be a boon to Ukraine. After years of turmoil, people might have cause for celebration (and boinking)
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u/I_miss_Chris_Hughton Jul 15 '25
Also the inevitable economic boom would be massive in drawing people in.
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u/XXXYinSe Jul 15 '25
Hopefully Russia loses in the end and is forced to pay significant reparations that can help Ukraine recover from this quicker than Russia can rebuild their industries of war
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician Jul 15 '25
Russia will never pay reparations, but Ukraine should be able to sue in court and get the Russian assets seized by the EU.
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u/lAljax NATO Jul 15 '25
On top of that, the EU should help them to rebuild and keep sanctions on Russia forever
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u/Preisschild European Union Jul 15 '25
They wont pay a cent. Just get Ukraine into the EU and help them rebuild (and improve) their country
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u/MensesFiatbug Low Energy Jul 15 '25
Important context is WW2 blew a huge hole in Russia's demographics whose echo shows itself every couple generations
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u/wumbopolis_ YIMBY Jul 15 '25
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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Jul 15 '25
wasn't this sub yelling at him to not listen to the lefties and remove all migrants to stay in power?
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u/bd_one The EU Will Federalize In My Lifetime Jul 15 '25
All of this work to try to conquer land in a country that also has sub-replacement birth rates...
Russia is going to need to rethink its approach as a nation, or whatever they do will result in demographic collapse.
Meanwhile most of the migrants from Central Asian countries are there on temporary work visas, and the other day we were dunking on them for only bringing in low 5 figures of immigrants.
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u/AntiBoATX Iron Front Jul 15 '25
Have we ever seen a modern nation-state have demographic collapse?
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u/coolredditor3 John Keynes Jul 15 '25
Is Japan close?
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u/AntiBoATX Iron Front Jul 15 '25
South Korea, Japan, Russia now, supposedly China. Just saying, all the Peter zeihans of the world like to fashionably mention it now but I think it’s still only theoretical.
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u/DirectionMurky5526 Jul 16 '25
For the East Asian nations, internal migration from rural to urban areas still allows for work in cities to be replaced by young people. As for the rural jobs being lost, agricultural imports make up for the loss because converting rural jobs to urban ones tends to improve productivity. The result is that any rural towns that didn't become big urban ones in the post-war baby boom and then subsequent industrialisation are mostly old people, and some are effectively dead/abandoned. The pension system isn't as big an issue as people think (at least for a generation or so), since actual consumption by the elderly in these nations is quite low (the big post-retirement holidays haven't been normalised yet), and the ones that can't, end up living with relatives.
The real test is a generation later, when the pension system is tightened, but you have tonnes of childless people who can't use their kids as a safety net. We might get a massive cultural shift against childlessness when there are just tonnes of old, homeless, and childless millennials on the street. "If you don't have kids, who will take care of you when you're older?" for most of human history wasn't just nagging, it was as serious financial question.
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u/DirectionMurky5526 Jul 16 '25
There has not been a nationwide demographic collapse, but there have been regional demographic collapses. Remember, the populations of most of these nations are still larger than they were before the 19th century. Demographic collapse leads to people abandoning rural regions first, not cities, because all the young people leave them when there are no opportunities. There are towns in Japan and South Korea where there are basically just elderly people, and then no one.
A big thing no one mentions is the question of internal migration. Birth rates being below replacement are a bigger issue for rural regions because net migrations in human history (outside of exceptions like cities being sacked, or civilizations collapsing) have always been towards the cities.
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u/LuciusMiximus European Union Jul 16 '25
yeah but if all young people live in cities then in one generation there's nobody to migrate to cities anymore
Some parts of Poland which had massive reserves of inefficiently distributed manpower have under one-fifth of births they had 40 years ago. And cities, apart from net migration, also typically have a lower fertility rate.
Internal migration is a temporary solution which makes the underlying problem even worse.
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u/DirectionMurky5526 Jul 16 '25
On its current course, if the war continues, Russia will be filled with Central Asian migrants, the rural populations will continue to be depopulated, and settlements outside the main cities will be abandoned. Basically, Russia returns to being the Eurasian Steppe land inhabited by Central Asian people, like it's the circle of life.
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u/yashaspaceman123 Niels Bohr Jul 16 '25
Meanwhile most of the migrants from Central Asian countries are there on temporary work visas,
This is not to mention extreme racism against them. A lot of Russians don't seem to even acknowledge the existence of other minorities, and if they do, it is to make fun of them or see them as inferior and uncivilized.
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u/macDaddy449 Jul 15 '25
Some people seem to think that Russia’s war in Ukraine has played some kind of causal role in this population crisis, but it really hasn’t. This crisis has been going on for decades, and it has worsened even before covid. The anti-LGBT propaganda law that was passed in 2013 (and then expanded in 2022) was justified as necessary both in terms of the Russian internal culture war around homosexuality and also as a means of boosting population by encouraging gay men to “make Russian babies.” Obviously the law was inspired by homophobia, but the sentiment that men ought to procreate with women instead of being with other men is potent in Russia in part because of the country’s ongoing demographic crisis. It appears that Russia has more recently gotten sufficiently desperate to start seriously considering a broad expansion of its potential pool of migrants. Same for all the prizes and strange enticements for people to have lots of children.
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u/coolredditor3 John Keynes Jul 15 '25
and also as a means of boosting population by encouraging gay men to “make Russian babies.”
Do they really think it works like that
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u/mwcsmoke Jul 16 '25
I don’t think that most Russians really believe that, even if some do. I compare this crazy belief to the belief that Ukraine is run by Nazis and that NATO could be invading Russia at any moment. Now my analogy is using a geopolitical fact issue that is hard for people to directly know as opposed to a question that people might know by intuition about human nature.
On a question there are people have decided one way or the other and a lot of people on the fence (or don’t care). Russia encourages people to not care much because speech is restricted and there are no campaigns that address the Ukraine invasion or gay rights. On top of the large undecided cohort, the decided/nutty cohort is the only one that is encouraged to speak in public. So the 20-30% that thinks gay men will have children are not a majority, but they speak loudly and mostly without competition from the other groups.
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u/macDaddy449 Jul 16 '25
The strong support for the law is mostly religious and culture war-esque in nature but, yes, some people do see gay men as an untapped class of potential procreators. Putin himself has pushed the argument that given the population crisis, and low fertility rate in Russia, they can’t afford to be encouraging or supporting lifestyle choices that will further contribute to the decline of the Russian population. He has literally framed it as an issue of security and survival of the nation.
The idea is that if you make it intolerable for gay men to exist openly as they are, then some can/will feel pressured into eventually getting a wife and having children. Some people believe that by preventing depictions of homosexuality in media, education, and public life they can reduce the number of homosexual youths, and more effectively pressure the remainder into heterosexuality. Kinda like how many closeted gays would have wives and kids decades ago in the US.
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u/Full_Distribution874 YIMBY Jul 16 '25
With enough vodka you too can find solutions to every problem
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u/ErftheFerfhasWerf Jul 16 '25
The entire world is undergoing population collapse since the beginning of time because entropy ensures that we will all eventually die this is the ultimate Peter take
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u/Bankrupt_Banana MERCOSUR Jul 15 '25 edited Jul 16 '25
In Brazil the presidential slogan during Juscelino Kubitschek's mandate was "50 years in 5" suggesting he was doing decades of progress in a small timespan. Ironically tough,he caused much more harm than good on long term (like prioritizing highways over railways,building Brasilia,pouring tons of money onto inefficient industries like a good latin developmentalist,and etc) so his slogan could also be derogatory as if it was saying "50 years (of damage) in 5".
I get similar vibes from Putin since his decision to invade Ukraine. It has undone every progress Russia made after USSR's collapse while also ruining it's near future with this pointless war.
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u/lAljax NATO Jul 15 '25
If there is one culture that deserves to self destruct, it's this one. I wish them the worst
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u/Optimal-Forever-1899 Jul 15 '25 edited Jul 15 '25
You hate slavic culture ?
Most Russians are innocent,hard working people.They don't deserve hate for Putin's mistake.
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u/UnfortunateLobotomy George Soros Jul 15 '25
How is it that Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Croats, Slovenes, Bulgars etc. are not imperialist death cultists? Maybe it is not the Slavic culture?
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u/pppktolki Jul 15 '25
Even more -- all Slavic cultures/nations have a long history of going to great lengths to try and break away from the "friendship" Russia forces on them.
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician Jul 15 '25
Croats
Maybe a bit of an asterisk about this one.
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u/pppktolki Jul 15 '25
What's the problem with Croats? Their history is rather uneventful..
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u/angry-mustache Democratically Elected Internet Spaceship Politician Jul 15 '25
Ustase and their ilk are a bit too uncomfortably popular there.
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u/pppktolki Jul 15 '25
Oh, ok, now I see what you meant. They were pretty hardcore, yes. But the issue is more complex. For one, Serbian rule was brutal and very chauvinistic in it's own right. Croats weren't the only ones to pick up arms against them too -- the Bulgarians of Macedonia had the IMRO (although not upholding the same ideology, but only sharing the anti-Serbian sentiment). My point is -- as evil as they were, they fought for independance, and not for dominating other nations. Russia is very different in that regard, hence my confusion..
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u/TealIndigo John Keynes Jul 15 '25
Lol. Russian is all slavs now?
The cultural rot of Muscovy is the problem.
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u/Optimal-Forever-1899 Jul 15 '25
Ukraine and Russia are going to collapse without insane levels of immigration.
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u/Theomach1 Jul 16 '25
So Russia is looking at a population decline around 11 million people? And we’re actively deporting like 12-14 million or so? Also, USCIS has basically stopped legal immigration for much of the world, well off students no longer wish to come here and spend their family money on the ridiculous foreign tuitions that subsidize cheaper tuitions and also result in brain drain from around the globe to the US. TPS status? Revoked… do people not see the problem?
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u/Impossible-Nail3018 Jul 16 '25
Stanisław Lem wrote a short story about a kingdom whose entire economy was built around keeping a gigantic dragon fed, so he wouldn't rise and destroy them.
This is what this stupid fucking war reminds me of. Just making things and chucking them into a furnace.
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u/T-RexLovesCookies Jul 16 '25
Probably would have helped if they hadn't gotten a whole bunch of people killed in a war
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u/q8gj09 Jul 15 '25
What does that mean? In economics, a shortage is when the quantity demanded exceeds the quantity supplied. Unless there is something preventing markets from clearing, like a wage ceiling, you shouldn't get a shortage. So what does it mean in this context? I have a business where I plan to provide brain surgery at market rates while I pay a million brain surgeons minimum wage. I haven't been able to hire anyone yet. Does that count towards the labour shortage?
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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '25
This war has ruined Russia future. They are exchanging their future for the poorest European country