What Do Changing Demographics in Asia Mean for the Power Balance of the Region?
Introduction
In recent years, there seems to have been an ever growing interest in the political-economic climate of Asia as the region’s prominence on the world stage has continued to grow. You have countries like China and South Korea setting record high GDPs and toppling historically economically dominant North American and European nations. However, this is in contrast to some nations like Afghanistan and Nepal, which have significantly lower levels of development in things like infrastructure, military, and education. The region has constantly been under some kind of conflict, some examples being the Korean War, the Moro Conflicts, the US Invasion of Afghanistan, and the Sino-Vietnamese War, and analysts are always trying to predict who holds the most power and influence in Asia as some have risen to be more dominant over others. It is of even more interest to examine this region as the number of developing nations in Asia significantly outnumber the developed ones. These two categories of nations in Asia will provide an interesting insight into how the power balance in Asia stands and many factors play into this, such as population distributions and military size and expenditures. How does the strength of the developing nations combined stack up to the combined strength of the developed nations in Asia and what role does population play in that?
Data
The data that will be used for this analysis originates from a variety of sources. Some of the data has been obtained from the United States Census Bureau, which publishes the “International Database: World Population Estimates and Projections” which can be accessed and downloaded by the public. The database is an estimation and projection of the populations for over 200 countries. The projections estimate population through to the year 2100. Within the data are the populations for countries separated into 5-year age brackets. Data about different countries’ militaries was also obtained from The World Bank’s World Development Indicators database, of which goes back several decades. Lastly, data was obtained from both the United Nations and the World Bank that provides regional classifications. Both of these organizations group countries together into regions and have a set of criteria for various other classifications that they give to countries.
Analysis
First, the populations for all countries that were classified as being a part of Asia were divided between whether they were classified as a developed nation or a developing nation then aggregated together, creating the following visualizations.
The above two charts are population distributions. They are showing the state of Asia’s population in the year 2010. The chart on the left shows the distribution of the developed nations in Asia and it can be seen that the largest age groups in the population in these nations are among 30 to 64 year old people. It can also be seen that the oldest among the populations in developed nations cap out at around 90 to 94 years old. This can be compared to the chart on the right, which shows the distribution of developing nations. The largest age groups can be seen to be among 0 to 29 year old people on this chart and the oldest in the populations of developing nations look to cap out at around 80 to 84 years old. When comparing these two, developed nations have an overall older population than developing nations in 2010 and the populations are more skewed towards the middle aged in developed nations as well. The distribution is more of a triangle shape for developing nations and it shows that the most abundant populations are among the youth and the numbers continuously taper off the older the population is. It would be of interest to see how these may have changed in just a few years.
The above visualizations show the population distributions in 2019. In just shy of a decade, it can already be seen that the populations have changed significantly. For developed nations, the largest population groups are among 40 to 69 year old people and the oldest cap out at around 95 to 99 years old. For developing nations, the largest population groups now range from 0 to 34 years old and the oldest cap out at around 85 to 89 years old. While the populations of developed nations remain to be much older than in developing nations, a significant change can be seen in both. The biggest thing of note is that the developed nations seem to have a continuously shrinking youth demographic, signifying that less children are being born each year. The populations for developing nations seem to be much more consistent in contrast. The youth populations have maintained a majority and the population distribution remains consistent among 0 to 24 year old people.
The above two visualizations are line plots that show how the populations have changed over time from 2010 to 2019. The populations have been grouped into three categories: Young (0–29), Middle (30–64), and Elder (65–100+). In the top plot, it can be seen that the populations of Young people are declining and the Elder populations are on the rise in developed nations in Asia. It can also be seen that the largest age group in these nations is the Middle group by a wide margin. In developing nations in Asia, there is a sharp contrast that can be seen. The largest group is Young with Middle closely behind. There is a much more significant gap between Elder and the other groups. The slopes of the different age groups in developing nations are also much smaller in how they are changing over time when compared to in developed nations with the exception of a seemingly growing Middle population. The populations are much more consistent and overall younger in developing nations than in developed nations, which are rapidly aging with decreased birth rates.
The above plots are scatter plots showing the relationships between the total populations of young people and the percentage of the total labor force in the military for each country each year from 2010 to 2019. As there are much less developed nations in Asia than developing ones, there are significantly less data points on the left chart than the right one. It can be seen that the countries with the highest populations of young people have a consistently low percentage of their population in the military regardless of if they are developed or developing. The Pearson correlation coefficient between these two things in developed nations is -0.406. This is a relatively strong negative correlation. This would suggest that the smaller the youth population in a developed nation, the larger a percentage of its population is in the military. The correlation coefficient for developing nations is -0.230. This is also a relatively strong negative correlation though it is a weaker correlation than in developed nations.
These two scatter plots show the relationships between the total populations of young people and military expenditures as a percentage of GDP for each country each year from 2010 to 2019. It can be seen that the plots resemble the previous two plots very much, however the Pearson correlation coefficients tell a different story. The correlation coefficient between these two factors for developed nations is -0.236. This is a relatively strong negative correlation. However, the correlation coefficient for developing nations is -0.029, which is very weak as the absolute value of this value is less than 0.2. No significance can be found in this relationship for developing nations. It is of note that both the correlations in these relationships are weaker than in the relationships between total populations of young people and the percentage of the total labor force in the military.
Conclusion
Despite the massive economic powers behind the developed nations in Asia, the data tells a bleaker story for the future of these nations when compared to their developing neighbors. The populations of developed nations are rapidly aging alongside a continuously declining birthrate. This is in contrast to the populations of developing nations that have a consistent birthrate and a more normal population distribution. This may suggest that developed nations will have smaller populations and less able-bodied fighters in any possible future conflicts in Asia as time goes on, a problem that the developing nations would not have to face for quite some time. A stronger negative correlation was also found between total youth populations and percentage of the population in the military in developed nations than in developing ones which only supports this possibility. Similar correlations were also found between the total populations of young people and military expenditures as a percentage of GDP. While the developed nations hold much more power individually than the developing nations in Asia, they are significantly outnumbered in terms of population and this problem will only continue to be exacerbated over time. However, there is still further room for future analysis to look into how various factors affect the military strength of nations in Asia.
