Protesters recently took to the streets of China's cities in a rare show of political dissent. While the demonstrations are focused largely on the authorities' zero-Covid policy, they have sparked speculation that a pro-democracy movement -- and even a Taiwan-style political transition -- could come next. But this is unlikely, not least because decades of strict family-planning policies have left China with too few young people to join the fight.
A country can be said to be having a "youth boom" when the proportion of people aged 15-29 exceeds 28%. When a country is experiencing a youth boom, it may also find itself on the path to political change -- including, potentially, democratisation.
That was the case in Taiwan and South Korea. As the share of young people increased -- from 25% in each country in 1966 to a peak of 31% in the early 1980s. Both economies became democracies in 1987, when their populations' median age was 26. A youth boom also contributed to the eruption of the Arab Spring uprisings in 2010, when the median age across the Arab world was just 20.
