EconAir

The Future 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 will 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.   Almost all countries outside of Africa are already facing or will soon face below replacement birth rates. 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 major age groups. See  Global Demographics and Population Projections .   Population and economies can growth even if birth rates are below replacement. But eventually both...

  Americans   SUMMARY   The longer-run projection is a population of about 335 million people in 2100 (Lancet), about the same number as today. But there is a very wide range of uncertainty around this projection, partly depending on future birth rates and levels of immigration.   The U.S. birth rate is around 1.6, below the replacement level of 2.1. This is inline with most industrialized countries but higher than Japan and China.  Because of demographics, the United States could have a better economic future than almost any other industrial or industrializing country. Almost all these countries will experience declining populations (if levels of immigration do not substantially increase), many with population decreases of 30-50%. Also, most of these countries will have higher dependency ratios (a higher percent of old people) than the U.S. That is, the U.S. will have a relatively younger population. This is partly due to higher birth rates and high rates of im...