Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the
Speaker 1: global economy to you. Women aren't having babies anymore. Well
Speaker 1: they are, but they're having a lot fewer of them,
Speaker 1: especially in parts of Europe and Japan. If that's the
Speaker 1: future for all of us, the declining birth rate could
Speaker 1: have big implications for the economy, society, and everything. Later
Speaker 1: in the program, I'll be talking to a Canadian academic,
Speaker 1: Darryl Bricker, who thinks that all the big problems the
Speaker 1: world will be facing in fifty years time will relate
Speaker 1: in some way to a falling population. I'll also chat
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg columnist Justin Fox about why people who work
Speaker 1: from home are now the best paid US workers. But first,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg's economy reporter in Madrid, Jeanette Newman, has been to
Speaker 1: the epicenter of Europe's baby bust to get a glimpse
Speaker 1: of what might be your head. Nine women sit around
Speaker 1: a table at a health clinic in northern Spain. They're
Speaker 1: talking about why their home region of a Studius has
Speaker 1: the lowest fertility rate in the European Union. Those that
Speaker 1: don't have work blame the bad labor market. Those that
Speaker 1: do have a job, blame long working hours. All the
Speaker 1: women have one or two children. If it weren't for
Speaker 1: their own parents stepping into babysit, most days, the women
Speaker 1: say they wouldn't make it. Those problems might sound familiar
Speaker 1: to many women, but in a studius they have them
Speaker 1: in spades. Most of the local coal mines have closed
Speaker 1: and the steel industry is in decline. The economy is shrinking.
Speaker 1: The unemployment rate is four. Alba Scobio Sanchez is pregnant
Speaker 1: with her first child at thirty one years old. She's
Speaker 1: the only one among her group of friends in a
Speaker 1: studio US who will have a kid. I always knew
Speaker 1: that I wanted to have kids, even three, but I
Speaker 1: kept putting it off because of all day and certainty
Speaker 1: with jobs. Work life balance is a problem in Spain
Speaker 1: in general, not just a studios. But here we have
Speaker 1: the more serious problem that there's no work. In a studious,
Speaker 1: women are likely to have an average of one point
Speaker 1: zero three children, among the lowest fertility rates in the world.
Speaker 1: The figure measures the average number of children a woman
Speaker 1: is expected to have based on current fertility trends. The
Speaker 1: number in his studius is well below the European Union
Speaker 1: average of one point six children per woman, and that
Speaker 1: EU average is under the two point one children per
Speaker 1: woman that's necessary to maintain a stable population in a studius.
Speaker 1: There have been more deaths than births since At the
Speaker 1: same time, people in a Studios, like the rest of Spain,
Speaker 1: live longer than almost everyone else. The average life expectancy
Speaker 1: here is nearly eighty three years. Put those two demographic
Speaker 1: trends together and you get a shrinking, aging population. Just
Speaker 1: over a million people lived in the region in n
Speaker 1: Since then, the population has fallen by about fifty over
Speaker 1: the next decade. Economists expect the region to lose another
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people. Sixty five year old on Hiles Montero
Speaker 1: Garcia tells the women that those shifts have transformed her
Speaker 1: own family in town. It's all of us older people
Speaker 1: who remain here. There are no children, which are Detroit
Speaker 1: or any town. The plunging fertility rate and rapidly aging
Speaker 1: population in Asturias are an extreme example of a demographic
Speaker 1: trend that's reshaping economies around the world. Remember studying Thomas
Speaker 1: Malthus and economics during the past couple of centuries. Malthus
Speaker 1: and other demographers were mainly concerned with over population. They
Speaker 1: thought more people posed a threat to the supply of
Speaker 1: food and water and to the environment. Mouthess it only war,
Speaker 1: famine and disease would slow population growth. In fact, all
Speaker 1: it took was an industrial revolution and letting women into
Speaker 1: the workplace. Birth rates began to drop during the Industrial
Speaker 1: Revolution as countries became more prosperous and mortality rates fell
Speaker 1: across much of the world. Those declines accelerated in recent
Speaker 1: decades as more women joined the labor market. Changing attitudes
Speaker 1: about having and rearing children have also played a role.
Speaker 1: Women are having fewer children and later in life. In
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, countries such as the United States and
Speaker 1: South Korea reported their lowest fertility rates ever. In nineteen seventy,
Speaker 1: a woman in the US could be expected to have
Speaker 1: an average of two point five children. Now she is
Speaker 1: expected to have, on average, just over one point seven.
Speaker 1: The concern in many countries then has become population de client.
Speaker 1: Alejandro Macarone, a demographic expert and consultant, tells me that
Speaker 1: a smaller number of kids will have a big impact
Speaker 1: on businesses. We've spoken the children's clothing department at Spain's
Speaker 1: largest department store a Quarte in Glaze. He has to
Speaker 1: remind executives that demographic changes can sometimes explain weaker sales.
Speaker 1: For instance, maybe they wonder why they're selling less than
Speaker 1: ten years ago, but there are thirty percent less babies
Speaker 1: last year into That might be one of the resents
Speaker 1: an aging population consumes differently. Older people tend to consume
Speaker 1: less so called durable goods, think fewer dishwashers and cars.
Speaker 1: That also means they spend less on fuel. Those items
Speaker 1: tend to bring in a lot of taxes, so more
Speaker 1: sluggish sales can mean less in government coffers. Ignacio de
Speaker 1: la Torre is chief economist that investment bank Arcano Group.
Speaker 1: At his office in Madrid, he tells me that low
Speaker 1: birth rates mean policymakers should focus on increasing productivity. Economic
Speaker 1: growth just depends on two variables the number of hours
Speaker 1: worked and productivity over worked and the number of hours
Speaker 1: work and normany is pretty much linked to the growth
Speaker 1: of your active population. Active population has started to decline
Speaker 1: in the O city countries three years ago as well
Speaker 1: as in China, which means that in the past we
Speaker 1: had two engines of growth. Today we only have one
Speaker 1: engine of growth, which is which is a productivity. During
Speaker 1: the past twenty years in a Studios, the size of
Speaker 1: the economy has shrunk. As a share of the broader
Speaker 1: Spanish economy, Pensions and other government benefits make up around
Speaker 1: fort of income for households. Here. That's a much greater
Speaker 1: portion than in the rest of Spain. A Storius has
Speaker 1: attracted some immigration to counter the ebbing population, but nothing significant.
Speaker 1: Potential workers aren't drawn to the less dynamic economy. Those
Speaker 1: who do immigrate are mainly from outside Spain. The head
Speaker 1: of the statistics agency tells me they come to work
Speaker 1: in one of the few industries that is booming, elderly care.
Speaker 1: The mismatch of resources for young and old is on
Speaker 1: display and the small town in Asturias where I spoke
Speaker 1: with the women about the low fertility rate in the
Speaker 1: town and the surrounding area, there are eight social centers
Speaker 1: for elderly people and just one youth center. I visited
Speaker 1: one of the centers for the elderly. Retirees take exercise
Speaker 1: classes and play card games, which seemed to get pretty heated.
Speaker 1: Manuel Tourado Garcia runs one of the centers. A former minor,
Speaker 1: he has the build of someone who spent years breaking
Speaker 1: coal with a sledgehammer. Well finished the year with eight
Speaker 1: ninety seven members in a town of three thousand people.
Speaker 1: That's a lot, but it's to be expected. We're in
Speaker 1: a town that's growing old, the very old. You barely
Speaker 1: see any kids around across town. I visit the only
Speaker 1: youth center in the area. It's quiet. Manuel and Hillquista
Speaker 1: is the manager. He says, the local government has long
Speaker 1: dedicated greater resources toward older residents. They're more politically active
Speaker 1: and organized than young voters. There is high use and employment,
Speaker 1: which means they leave. It's a visious cycle because if
Speaker 1: the young people live, then there are people here to
Speaker 1: have kids, and therefore the birth rates go down. Look
Speaker 1: at it, it's very difficult to down things around. Most
Speaker 1: demographers agree with Manuel and Health the notable jump in
Speaker 1: fertility rates is unlikely in a studious or elsewhere in
Speaker 1: developed countries. But can anything be done to slightly boost
Speaker 1: the fertility rate so that women can have the children
Speaker 1: they want? An economist can rest somewhat assured about pensions
Speaker 1: and productivity. South Korea has tried in an effort to
Speaker 1: boost the world's lowest fertility rate Seoul has spent billions
Speaker 1: on subsidized childcare, free nurseries and stipends to no avail.
Speaker 1: That's in part because the measures have an addressed broader issues,
Speaker 1: says Olivier Tavan, an O E c d economist. There
Speaker 1: are a few top slots at the universities or in
Speaker 1: the labor market that makes things very competitive, and many
Speaker 1: women are still expected to stop working if they have
Speaker 1: a child. Other countries, such as Russia and Hungary have
Speaker 1: recently increased financial incentives for women to have children. Such
Speaker 1: measures can sometimes encourage a woman to have a child
Speaker 1: sooner than she was planning, but the measures aren't usually
Speaker 1: successful at boosting the fertility rate over time. France in
Speaker 1: the Nordic countries, on the other hand, have typically had
Speaker 1: a slightly higher fertility rate than peers. That's in part
Speaker 1: because they have more favorable labor mark conditions for women
Speaker 1: who want to have children. That includes subsidized child care
Speaker 1: for instance, parental leave, and a work culture that allows
Speaker 1: more family time. But a recent and striking decline in
Speaker 1: the fertility rate in the Nordic countries in particular seem
Speaker 1: to dethrone their status as the gold standard for work
Speaker 1: life balance. Researchers are still investigating why, but Magaila Kraenfeld,
Speaker 1: a professor of sociology at the Hrdye School in Berlin,
Speaker 1: points out that there could be an entirely benign explanation.
Speaker 1: Women in these countries may simply be choosing to have
Speaker 1: their children later. That could change what we might call
Speaker 1: the headline fertility rate for a few years. But in
Speaker 1: her view, the Nordics are still the outstanding examples of
Speaker 1: countries that are committed to letting women combine a career
Speaker 1: with as many children as they want. When you encourage
Speaker 1: compatibility of work and family life and also the parent
Speaker 1: leave benefit, that actually encouraged people actually to combine a
Speaker 1: working family life, and that it's good for gender equality
Speaker 1: and also for the sustainable of the household because then
Speaker 1: both couples can work, and that is actually for the
Speaker 1: economic foundation of the family actually more important on the
Speaker 1: long run. A studious as an example, writ large of
Speaker 1: the economic perils of having too many hurdles for women
Speaker 1: who want to work and also be a mom. There
Speaker 1: could be a big economic payoff awaiting any region or
Speaker 1: country that's able to make it easier for Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: I'm Jeanette Newman. So I'm joined now by Darryl Bricker,
Speaker 1: the Canadian author and pollster who was the co author
Speaker 1: with John Ibbotson of the book Empty Planet earlier this year. Darryl,
Speaker 1: thanks very much for chatting to Stephanomics. Well, I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to having a chat with you about this Today's Stephanie,
Speaker 1: So to tell us about the book, because it's it's
Speaker 1: was squarely on the themes that we talked about in
Speaker 1: Jeannette's piece. You know that the implications of this potential
Speaker 1: for the global population to fall, and I guess you
Speaker 1: you think that what we're seeing in places like Spain
Speaker 1: is just the beginning, and that the population globally is
Speaker 1: going to fall even more than the kind of official
Speaker 1: u N forecast suggest well, and so does so does
Speaker 1: the u N even since we wrote the book, because
Speaker 1: they've adjusted down their estimates by three million, did it
Speaker 1: just a couple of months ago, And that that's about
Speaker 1: the size of the population of the United States. So
Speaker 1: it gives you some sense of how big the potential
Speaker 1: for a decline is. So the Empty Planet is really
Speaker 1: all about what I call vertical knowledge. It's that thing
Speaker 1: that everybody knows that everybody repeats that nobody understands or
Speaker 1: is actually checked. So what John Evertson and I did
Speaker 1: was check and lo and behold, went to go in
Speaker 1: and and look at the way that the population estimates
Speaker 1: have been put together. They really are biased to suggest
Speaker 1: a much larger population than we're likely to have in
Speaker 1: the world. So um, the premise of the book is
Speaker 1: that the u N says we're going to be at
Speaker 1: about eleven billion people by the turn of the century.
Speaker 1: The premise of the book is we will never get there,
Speaker 1: will probably peek out somewhere between eight and nine billion
Speaker 1: and then start to decline. And the only question is
Speaker 1: how rapidly it struck me. I think your story. One
Speaker 1: of the big pieces of that is what you think
Speaker 1: is going to happen in Africa? Is that right? Because
Speaker 1: that's obviously one of the areas where we had expected
Speaker 1: population growth to continue to be quite rapid relative to
Speaker 1: other parts of the world. So we traveled to Africa,
Speaker 1: We went to uh we went to Kenya, and we
Speaker 1: looked around. We asked people who were demographers, We interviewed
Speaker 1: people who were living with these types of family issues
Speaker 1: in those in that country. In Arabian. You know, what
Speaker 1: we found was that some of the many of the
Speaker 1: things that we're having an effect in other places are
Speaker 1: having an effect in Kenya too, And the reason for
Speaker 1: that is because it's about urbanization, and Kenya is going
Speaker 1: through rapid urbanization, as is most of Africa, along with
Speaker 1: the effect of that on women's lives. And when women
Speaker 1: move into cities, their lives change. They get access to education,
Speaker 1: they get access to jobs and careers, They live a
Speaker 1: different life than their mother or their grandmother lived, and
Speaker 1: part of that different life is having a smaller family.
Speaker 1: So it's already started in Kenya, where it's gone from
Speaker 1: the nineteen six birth rate of about eight down to
Speaker 1: about five about ten years ago, it's now down below four.
Speaker 1: It's happening very, very rapidly. And if we step back
Speaker 1: and think what does this mean for the global economy,
Speaker 1: what kind of implications are we going to be grippling
Speaker 1: with over the next ten twenty you go look ahead
Speaker 1: even further than that to the second half of the
Speaker 1: twenty one century. But you know, we tend to think
Speaker 1: in Europe, Jeanette was talking about the efforts of governments
Speaker 1: to sort of effectively bribe people to have more more kids.
Speaker 1: You know, we tend to think it's a bad thing
Speaker 1: to have this potential decline in the population. Is that
Speaker 1: Is that the right way to think about No, it's not.
Speaker 1: As we say in the book, it's not a good thing.
Speaker 1: It's not a bad thing. It's just a big thing,
Speaker 1: and we have to understand it. And the thing about
Speaker 1: all of those attempts to bribe people, as you said,
Speaker 1: to have larger families, well, for the most part, they
Speaker 1: haven't paid off. For example, France, which you mentioned, the
Speaker 1: birthrate is below replacement, and all the Nordic countries the
Speaker 1: birthrate is below replacement. They can have some impact on
Speaker 1: the speed at which this happens, but the direction of
Speaker 1: it pretty much not. And the reason for that is
Speaker 1: what they're up against is not a financial decision that
Speaker 1: people are making. It's not an economically rationally driven decision.
Speaker 1: It's really a decision about the culture of the country.
Speaker 1: You know what, what what do they support? Larger families
Speaker 1: or smaller families and the lives that the parents want
Speaker 1: to live, and part of that life that they want
Speaker 1: to live today, the model for the life they want
Speaker 1: to live today is a smaller family. Should we worry
Speaker 1: about the growth implications. I mean a lot of people
Speaker 1: would say, you look at the spending habits of old
Speaker 1: people and you tend to think, um that you know,
Speaker 1: consumption will be lower, growth will be lower. Um. There's
Speaker 1: also people it's an older population is associated with less innovation.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, do you think maybe that would
Speaker 1: change as what do you think do you think we're
Speaker 1: necessarily going to see less economic growth even per head
Speaker 1: than we have in the in the future, in the
Speaker 1: future that we have in the past. Well you hit
Speaker 1: on a really key point stuff. And it's not just
Speaker 1: that the size of the population is going to change,
Speaker 1: but the structure of the population is going to change.
Speaker 1: So we have this uh and there's a huge youth
Speaker 1: bias when it comes to thinking about the economy. You know,
Speaker 1: we'll have a population maybe smaller that we'll be going
Speaker 1: through uh. Time and space as as as structured as
Speaker 1: it is today, it won't be the biggest growth in
Speaker 1: the population today is not as a result of people
Speaker 1: coming into the population, as a as a result of
Speaker 1: people not leaving. We're we're getting so much better at
Speaker 1: keeping people alive and it's had a huge impact on
Speaker 1: the structure of our population. We're really bad at make
Speaker 1: new people are getting worse out of In fact, we're
Speaker 1: really really good at keeping people alive. And as a
Speaker 1: result of this huge growth of elderly people, the idea
Speaker 1: that you know, early life consumption is going to drive
Speaker 1: our economy is going to have to change. But the
Speaker 1: large proportion of the consumption you do when you're older,
Speaker 1: at least in the current model that certainly the very
Speaker 1: old people is healthcare is only particular sectors. I guess
Speaker 1: that's what people are sort of nervous about how that
Speaker 1: might skew our economy going forward. Oh yeah, there's there's
Speaker 1: no doubt it's going to have a huge impact. There's
Speaker 1: very little study that's been done on this. Most of
Speaker 1: the conversations we have about about the economy are still
Speaker 1: stuck in that old the the old population model. By
Speaker 1: that I don't mean older population, but the way we
Speaker 1: used to think about UH population leading up to this period,
Speaker 1: which was very heavily youth driven UH And very few
Speaker 1: people are talking about exactly what we're talking about today,
Speaker 1: and who especially not talking about it are marketers and
Speaker 1: producers of products and services who still think that their
Speaker 1: market is going to be driven by young people, and
Speaker 1: that's going to be a decreasing case. It's been one
Speaker 1: of these great tropes that one here is particularly kind
Speaker 1: of fund managers who are investing in Japan. They're sort
Speaker 1: of top fact that they like to repeat is that
Speaker 1: the market in Japan for for adult diapers is now
Speaker 1: bigger than the the one for for baby diapers. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess, if if you think about I guess the
Speaker 1: upside of a declining population could be that some of
Speaker 1: the other things we've worried about recently, I mean, particularly
Speaker 1: the burden on the world, on the environment of a
Speaker 1: rising population, you might think that this would be good
Speaker 1: news for the environment. And the other thing that we
Speaker 1: talked about a lot is the loss of power for
Speaker 1: labor relative to capital, the way that wages have been
Speaker 1: squeezed in many countries over the last few decades. You know,
Speaker 1: if we end up with a sort of chronic labor
Speaker 1: short age globally, is that also something that might turn
Speaker 1: around in the next twenty or thirty years. Well, we've got,
Speaker 1: you know, three little things there that are really important,
Speaker 1: not three, three major things. One in terms of the environment,
Speaker 1: just about every aspect of of what's happening in the
Speaker 1: environment can't help but be improved. But with a smaller population,
Speaker 1: there's there's no doubt about that. So there's good news
Speaker 1: on the environmental front going forward, everything from the sustainability
Speaker 1: of fish stocks through to potentially global warming, whatever you
Speaker 1: want to take a look at. Having fewer people on
Speaker 1: the face of the earth is good for that if
Speaker 1: you've lost all the fish by the time you get
Speaker 1: to that point, and I guess it's academic, but anyway, well,
Speaker 1: it is a bit of a race. There's no there's
Speaker 1: no doubt about that. But the fact is that if
Speaker 1: there's fewer, if you change the denominator in many of
Speaker 1: these equations, the new moderator starts to change too. And
Speaker 1: the second point about that, which is the place of
Speaker 1: labor in in the marketplace. The idea of unemployment is
Speaker 1: going to change, The idea of employment is going to change,
Speaker 1: in the idea of retire elements is going to change.
Speaker 1: A lot of these concepts are going to have to
Speaker 1: be rethought as the population structure goes through the transition
Speaker 1: that it's going to go through. The biggest equation in
Speaker 1: all of this economically is what is the future of
Speaker 1: economic growth going to be. I think we're probably going
Speaker 1: to have to rethink that based on the changing structure
Speaker 1: of the population. Finally, I am not the first to
Speaker 1: mention to notice that in your book you basically predict that,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the world's great nations will not
Speaker 1: fare very well in this new new world, but Canada
Speaker 1: will get a new lease on life and might even
Speaker 1: turn into a global superpower. Um. But you've been teased
Speaker 1: for that a bit, given that your two Canadian authors.
Speaker 1: But what's what's the case for for Canada owning the future? Well,
Speaker 1: I know we've got some criticism about two Canadians writing
Speaker 1: a book that has something positive to say about Canada,
Speaker 1: mainly because I think we have just had more experience
Speaker 1: and exposure to it than than anything else. I mean,
Speaker 1: we certainly have our troubles here in Canada as well.
Speaker 1: But the one thing that Canada has seems to have
Speaker 1: gotten right, at least in the short term, as uh,
Speaker 1: the approach towards immigration. Now it might be unique to Canada.
Speaker 1: And the reason that it's unique to Canada is because
Speaker 1: of this that the um the construction of our culture.
Speaker 1: So the idea that you've got something to protect with
Speaker 1: the exception of the province of Quebec is not as
Speaker 1: strong here as it is in the in many other countries.
Speaker 1: So immigration is a short to medium term solution. But
Speaker 1: it is only a short to medium term solution, and
Speaker 1: the reason is because the places that normally spin off
Speaker 1: immigrants are also going through the same population change that
Speaker 1: that the developed countries are going through. And quite frankly,
Speaker 1: immigration is a young person's game, and they're not going
Speaker 1: to be as many young people immigrating. Well, you're looking
Speaker 1: around the world. I'm not sure that one would conclude
Speaker 1: that the world was becoming more like Canada, but I
Speaker 1: think I would definitely say it wouldn't be such a
Speaker 1: bad thing if it were. Thank you very much, Thank you, Stephanie.
Speaker 1: So I'm joined out by Bloomberg columnist and author Justin Fox.
Speaker 1: Justin thank you for coming on Stephanomics. Great to be here,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of things I like about
Speaker 1: your columns, But I think the thing that you do
Speaker 1: more than other people is you spot new facts, interesting
Speaker 1: things in new data, and then you write about what
Speaker 1: that data might mean for our economy but also for
Speaker 1: the for the way our lives are organized, and often
Speaker 1: I guess the way our towns and cities are organized.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to ask you about a top fact
Speaker 1: that you found buried in some recent US Census data
Speaker 1: on the earnings of different types of households in the US.
Speaker 1: It was very striking. Tell us more um. In the
Speaker 1: American Community Survey, this annual survey that the Census Bureau did,
Speaker 1: they ask people, um, how they got to work last week.
Speaker 1: And I actually got surveyed in the American Community Survey
Speaker 1: a few years ago, and I had actually ridden my
Speaker 1: bike to work three days the previous week, so I
Speaker 1: could put down could be part of that bold group
Speaker 1: of bike commuters. But anyway, the week that year that
Speaker 1: one of the only I was living up in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: where most of the time it was either too cold
Speaker 1: or too human to ride my bike to work, but
Speaker 1: it was beautiful weeks. I feel like undermined the day
Speaker 1: exactly well. But you figure, you know that that one
Speaker 1: person happened to do it that week, there will be
Speaker 1: other people who would do it other weeks. I think
Speaker 1: it all works out. So they ask this, and they
Speaker 1: also then they you know, cross tabulated with stuff like
Speaker 1: your media and earnings data. And one I've been watching
Speaker 1: this for a few years and one of the things
Speaker 1: that kind of funny that came out is that people
Speaker 1: who take public transportation um now have higher meeting, media
Speaker 1: and earnings in the US than people who drive to work.
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is pretty simple. It's that
Speaker 1: public trans most public transportation units users in the US
Speaker 1: aren't about five big rich metropolitan areas, and so they're richer.
Speaker 1: The other thing that stood out is that people who
Speaker 1: worked at home had the highest media and earnings of
Speaker 1: any of the main categories that the census tracks. And
Speaker 1: I looked back over the years and it turned out that,
Speaker 1: you know, in two thousand ten, that was not the
Speaker 1: case at all, and I think it was about two
Speaker 1: years ago. Um, they passed those who drive. And that
Speaker 1: just seemed one more I've been writing about this growing
Speaker 1: number of people who work at least part of the
Speaker 1: time from home, and this just seemed like one more interesting, um,
Speaker 1: a bit of evidence that this was happening and it
Speaker 1: was something that people were doing because it was a
Speaker 1: good deal for them. Now, I mean, economists always say
Speaker 1: connection is not causality. Also, you know the fact that
Speaker 1: these things go together, is not necessarily the reason for them.
Speaker 1: So if you've got if you're making more is obviously
Speaker 1: not just from working from home. It's fact. The fact
Speaker 1: that you're working from fro from home probably tells us
Speaker 1: something about the job you're you're doing, right, and it's
Speaker 1: it's white collar work, UM and professional work that people
Speaker 1: are increasingly doing this. There's there's another UM Bureau of
Speaker 1: Labor Statistics survey that I actually didn't realize was out
Speaker 1: there until after I'd done this column. But it just
Speaker 1: asked people, you know, it's the American Time You survey.
Speaker 1: They ask people how they spend their day, and basically
Speaker 1: the percentage of people who worked at home at least
Speaker 1: a little bit on an average day is close to
Speaker 1: a quarter, and for those with advanced degrees it's more.
Speaker 1: And that's partly just because people with advanced degrees all
Speaker 1: work way too many hours in the US, and so
Speaker 1: a lot of those people are both working in an
Speaker 1: office all day and working at home. But there's still
Speaker 1: the percentage of those people who are working in an
Speaker 1: office at all is much lower than for people in
Speaker 1: of of lower education levels. I guess I mean the
Speaker 1: darker interpretation of this is that, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: one more way in which lower skilled workers in the
Speaker 1: US and other places are being locked out of the
Speaker 1: the advantages of being in a twenty one century economy.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't work at home if you're an
Speaker 1: Amazon warehouse worker, right, you work in a supermarket. I
Speaker 1: think you also point out that it's a do you
Speaker 1: say in your column it seems to be a white
Speaker 1: people thing. I mean there's a lot smaller proportion of
Speaker 1: African American and Hispanic people from Yeah. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a privilege extended to people who already have some privileges.
Speaker 1: And there are lots of ways that it's great. It
Speaker 1: It sort of allows people to live in different places.
Speaker 1: It might take a little bit of the pressure off
Speaker 1: real estate markets and places like San Francisco and New York.
Speaker 1: And it's it's interesting that I looked at the metropolitan
Speaker 1: areas in the US that have the highest percentages of
Speaker 1: at home workers, and number one is Boulder, Colorado, which
Speaker 1: is a totally lovely place. Also right outside of a
Speaker 1: really big metropolitan area, Denver Kingston, New York, which is
Speaker 1: the cat Skills here outside of New York City is
Speaker 1: another one of the top ones. Portland, Oregon is another
Speaker 1: big one, and there are tons of people who have
Speaker 1: still have work connections to Silicon Valley but live in
Speaker 1: Portland or Bend or again or elsewhere and maybe go
Speaker 1: down once every two weeks or something like that. You
Speaker 1: often do right about about cities. It's one another reason
Speaker 1: I write your columns. And I guess there's always been
Speaker 1: a debate about whether or not telecommuting and sort of
Speaker 1: the internet digitalization generally was going to be good for
Speaker 1: cities or whether it was actually going to mean more
Speaker 1: even distribution of wealth and jobs around the economy. I mean,
Speaker 1: so far, we have seen still what you'd call the
Speaker 1: agglomeration effects. You've still seen cities get more and more
Speaker 1: pop successful, cities get more and more successful, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that you you know, you think people will be
Speaker 1: able to work from anywhere. Do you think there's any sign,
Speaker 1: I mean you see in these numbers. Do you think
Speaker 1: there's any sign of that shifting. I feel like there's some,
Speaker 1: and they're definitely signs in US population data of places
Speaker 1: like the Bay Area in the New York Area, starting
Speaker 1: in New York City proper starting to lose people. Although
Speaker 1: when you dig a little deeper, it's mostly UM people
Speaker 1: who earn less money, have lower education levels who are
Speaker 1: the ones bailing out. So it's a little hard so
Speaker 1: at this point, not yet, but it definitely is. One
Speaker 1: thing that this just made me think of is, you know,
Speaker 1: the rise of computers was supposed to mean the end
Speaker 1: of lots of paper in offices, and I think for
Speaker 1: the first UM decade or so it was the exact opposite.
Speaker 1: People had these printers and they printed out twice as much.
Speaker 1: I know, reached a point where I don't print out
Speaker 1: a lot. And I would guess that shows up in
Speaker 1: UM paper statistics. I mean, I think the paperless office has,
Speaker 1: bit by bit finally come and I you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're counter forces in this whole agglomeration thing that Yes,
Speaker 1: it's really useful to be in a in a in
Speaker 1: a dense place where you interact with lots of other people.
Speaker 1: But I think it's also possible to find ways to
Speaker 1: keep taking advantage of that occasionally while saving on living cars,
Speaker 1: commuting cars, communing time, and everything else. Justin Fox, thank
Speaker 1: you very much, Thank you, thanks for listening to Stephanomics.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with more on the ground
Speaker 1: insights into the global economy. In the meantime. You can
Speaker 1: find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, website, app, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. We'd love it if you took
Speaker 1: the time to rate and review our show so it
Speaker 1: can reach more listeners. And for more news and analysis
Speaker 1: during the week from Bloomberg Economics, follow as Economics on Twitter.
Speaker 1: You can also find me on at my Stephonomics. The
Speaker 1: story in this episode was reported and written by Jeanette Newman.
Speaker 1: It was produced by Magnus Hendrickson and edited by Bruce Douglas.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Darryl Bricker and Justin Fox. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Scott Laman and Francesco Levy is the head
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg podcast. The un