Demographics and Economic Growth
The Future Manufacturing Labor Force SUMMARY This post is a summary of some of the themes of previous posts on demographic and population projections, with an emphasis on how demographics impact economic growth. See bibliography at the end of this post. For a list of all blog posts on a wide variety of topics, see List of Posts by Topic on my blog. Two-thirds of countries are experiencing birth rates below replacement. Almost all countries outside of Africa have or will soon have below replacement birth rates. The latest countries that have below replacement birthrates are India, Bangladesh and the Philippines. Without immigration, this could lead first to smaller labor forces with greater numbers of retired citizens. Eventually, however, both the number of workers and retired citizens will decrease. During both stages of the transition, there will be issues of how to increase total output, maintain standards of living, and allocate income between the two majo...