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Animation: Comparing China vs. India Population Pyramids

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Enacted in 1979 by China’s Communist Party, the controversial “One Child Policy” was primarily meant to slow the country’s rapid population growth, while capping the growing drain on China’s limited resources.

Even though the government’s primary objectives were arguably achieved through these extreme measures, it has been at an extraordinary human cost. The draconian enforcement of these policies, combined with the unintended consequences on families and the cultural preference for male children, will have an everlasting impact on the country’s future.

Wonky Demographics

Fast forward to today, and the policy is still in place, but to a lesser effect. Since early 2016, families have been allowed to have two children – but even with this change in place, China still has a self-inflicted demographic disaster on its hands.

In the below population pyramids created by Aron Strandberg, the very different trajectories of China and India are compared directly. China is not only skewing older and more male – it is also losing its strong base of younger workers that could potentially support the rest of the population.

Animation: Comparing China vs. India Population Pyramids

China’s “population pyramid” is not really a pyramid at all – in the coming decades, it’ll look more like a single pillar stuck propping up a burgeoning elderly demographic of people born before 1979.

And over time, the unintended and ongoing effects of population control will be extremely impactful on China’s future. As one example of the emerging challenges, a recent estimate published in Scientific American pegged China’s shortage of women at 62 million, creating a situation where there’ll be millions of men who are unable to marry.

This gender imbalance exacerbates an already existing shortfall at the younger end of China’s population spectrum – and the end result will be a rapidly falling ratio of workers to retirees in the Chinese economy:

China workers per retiree

Today, the ratio is roughly seven workers per retiree – and by 2050, when China’s population is 100 million people fewer than it is today, there will be just two workers per retiree.

A New Population Paradigm

As China struggles with a declining population and a lack of young people, India is expected to takes its place as the most populous country in the world by roughly 2027.

Most populous countries in the world

This new paradigm will be an incredibly interesting one to watch.

By the year 2100, China won’t be home to a single one of the world’s 20 most populous cities.

Instead, these massive metropolises will almost exclusively be located in places like India and Africa – and some of them, like Mumbai, will hold 60 million or more inhabitants.

China’s New Hope

While this shift in global demographics is going to be extremely difficult to deal with for China, there is optimism that increasing levels of automation and the emergence of artificial intelligence will help make up for any shortfalls.

The AI market alone is expected to drive $7 trillion in GDP growth by 2030, and China’s investments in robotics and automation are sure to keep the country a center of manufacturing in the future – even if those factories are being staffed with robots instead of workers.

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Countries

Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally

How many democracies does the world have? This visual shows the change since 1945 and the top nations becoming more (and less) democratic.

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Charted: The Number of Democracies Globally

The end of World War II in 1945 was a turning point for democracies around the world.

Before this critical turning point in geopolitics, democracies made up only a small number of the world’s countries, both legally and in practice. However, over the course of the next six decades, the number of democratic nations would more than quadruple.

Interestingly, studies have found that this trend has recently reversed as of the 2010s, with democracies and non-democracies now in a deadlock.

In this visualization, Staffan Landin uses data from V-DEMโ€™s Electoral Democratic Index (EDI) to highlight the changing face of global politics over the past two decades and the nations that contributed the most to this change.

The Methodology

V-DEM’s EDI attempts to measure democratic development in a comprehensive way, through the contributions of 3,700 experts from countries around the world.

Instead of relying on each nation’s legally recognized system of government, the EDI analyzes the level of electoral democracy in countries on a range of indicators, including:

  • Free and fair elections
  • Rule of law
  • Alternative sources of information and association
  • Freedom of expression

Countries are assigned a score on a scale from 0 to 1, with higher scores indicating a higher level of democracy. Each is also categorized into four types of functional government, from liberal and electoral democracies to electoral and closed autocracies.

Which Countries Have Declined the Most?

The EDI found that numerous countries around the world saw declines in democracy over the past two decades. Here are the 10 countries that saw the steepest decline in EDI score since 2010:

CountryDemocracy Index (2010)Democracy Index (2022)Points Lost
๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡บ Hungary0.800.46-34
๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡ฑ Poland0.890.59-30
๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡ธ Serbia0.610.34-27
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ท Tรผrkiye0.550.28-27
๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡ณ India0.710.44-27
๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฑ Mali0.510.25-26
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ญ Thailand0.440.20-24
๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ซ Afghanistan0.380.16-22
๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ท Brazil0.880.66-22
๐Ÿ‡ง๐Ÿ‡ฏ Benin0.640.42-22

Central and Eastern Europe was home to three of the countries seeing the largest declines in democracy. Hungary, Poland, and Serbia lead the table, with Hungary and Serbia in particular dropping below scores of 0.5.

Some of the world’s largest countries by population also decreased significantly, including India and Brazil. Across most of the top 10, the “freedom of expression” indicator was hit particularly hard, with notable increases in media censorship to be found in Afghanistan and Brazil.

Countries Becoming More Democratic

Here are the 10 countries that saw the largest increase in EDI score since 2010:

CountryDemocracy Index (2010)Democracy Index (2022)Points Gained
๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡ฒ Armenia0.340.74+40
๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ฏ Fiji0.140.40+26
๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ฒ The Gambia0.250.50+25
๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡จ Seychelles0.450.67+22
๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฌ Madagascar0.280.48+20
๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ณ Tunisia0.400.56+16
๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡ฐ Sri Lanka0.420.57+15
๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ผ Guinea-Bissau0.410.56+15
๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฉ Moldova0.590.74+15
๐Ÿ‡ณ๐Ÿ‡ต Nepal0.460.59+13

Armenia, Fiji, and Seychelles saw significant improvement in the autonomy of their electoral management bodies in the last 10 years. Partially as a result, both Armenia and Seychelles have seen their scores rise above 0.5.

The Gambia also saw great improvement across many election indicators, including the quality of voter registries, vote buying, and election violence. It was one of five African countries to make the top 10 most improved democracies.

With the total number of democracies and non-democracies almost tied over the past four years, it is hard to predict the political atmosphere in the future.

Want to know more about democracy in today’s world? Check out our global breakdown of each country’s democratic score in Mapped: The State of Global Democracy in 2022.
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