Global Demography: Fact, Force and Future

In the past 50 years, the world accelerated its transition out of long-term demographic stability. As infant and child mortality rates fell, populations began to soar. In most countries, this growth led to falling fertility rates. Although fertility has fallen, the population continues to increase because of population momentum; it will eventually level off. In the meantime, demographic change has created a ‘bulge’ generation, which today appears in many countries as a large working-age population. This cohort will eventually become a large elderly population, in both developed and developing countries. Population growth has been the subject of great debate among economists and demographers. Until recently, most have agreed on a middle ground, in which population growth per se has no effect on economic growth. New evidence suggests that changes in the age structure of populations – in particular, a rising ratio of working-age to non-working-age individuals – leads to the possibility of more rapid economic growth, via both accounting and behavioural effects. The experiences of east Asia, Ireland and sub-Saharan Africa all serve as evidence of the effect of demographic change on economic growth (or lack thereof). Both internal migration (from rural to urban areas) and international migration complicate this picture. The overall implications of population growth for policy lie in the imperative for investments in health and education, and for sound policies related to labour, trade and retirement. Understanding future trends is essential for the development of good policy. Demographic projections can be quite reliable, but huge uncertainties – in the realms of health, changes in human life span, scientific advances, migration, global warming and wars – make overall predictions extremely uncertain.demography; population; aging

Why Punish the Children? A Reappraisal of the Children of Incarcerated Mothers in America

The incarceration rate for female offenders has skyrocketed in recent years. This has spurred unwelcomed growth of the invisible class of infants, children, and teenagers who find themselves without a mother at home. While new legions of children are growing up separated from their mothers, government agencies appear more powerless than ever to attend to the needs of their children, their mothers, and their caregivers. Now more than ever, we must renew our concern and define our commitment to these children

Population Dynamics in India and Implications for Economic Growth

Demographic change in India is opening up new economic opportunities. As in many countries, declining infant and child mortality helped to spark lower fertility, effectively resulting in a temporary baby boom. As this cohort moves into working ages, India finds itself with a potentially higher share of workers as compared with dependents. If working-age people can be productively employed, India's economic growth stands to accelerate. Theoretical and empirical literature on the effect of demographics on labor supply, savings, and economic growth underpins this effort to understand and forecast economic growth in India. Policy choices can potentiate India's realization of economic benefits stemming from demographic change. Failure to take advantage of the opportunities inherent in demographic change can lead to economic stagnation.age structure, China-India comparison, conditional convergence, demographic dividend, demographic transition, economic growth, economic growth in India, policy reform, population health, population of India

Booms, Busts, and Echoes: How the biggest demographic upheaval in history is affecting global development

For much (and perhaps most) of human history, demographic patterns were fairly stable: the human population grew slowly, and age structures, birth rates, and death rates changed very little. The slow long-run growth in population was interrupted periodically by epidemics and pandemics that could sharply reduce population numbers, but these events had little bearing on long-term trends.demography, growth, global development

Arbitrator Behavior in Public Sector Wage Disputes

This study analyzes a new set of data on the decisions of conventional arbitrators. The main goal is to draw inferences about the extent to which conventional arbitration decisions are fashioned as mechanical compromises of the parties' final offers, without reference to the exogenous facts involved in different disputes. The results of the analysis are remarkably clear: conventional arbitrators tend to split-the-difference between the parties' final offers with virtually no evidence of additional systematic reference to the facts of the cases. However, since there is a substantial amount of unexplained variance in the arbitration decisions, this evidence of mechanical compromise behavior should be viewed as characterizing the overall operation of conventional arbitration mechanisms and not the behavior of individual arbitrators in any particular case. Indeed, the results are consistent with the view that individual arbitrators pay close attention to the facts of the cases, but that there is considerable variation in the structure of different arbitrators' preference functions.

Global Demographic Change: Dimensions and Economic Significance

Transitions from high mortality and fertility to low mortality and fertility can be beneficial to economies as large baby boom cohorts enter the workforce and save for retirement, while rising longevity has perhaps increased both the incentive to invest in education and to save for retirement. We present estimates of a model of economic growth that highlights the positive effects of demographic change during 1960-95. We also show how Ireland benefited from lower fertility in the form of higher labor supply per capita and how Taiwan benefited through increased savings rates. We emphasize, however, that the realization of the potential benefits associated with the demographic transition appears to be dependent on institutions and policies, requiring the productive employment of the potential workers and savings the transition generates. Economic projections based on an "accounting" approach that assumes constant age-specific behavior are likely to be seriously misleading.

Contraception and the Celtic Tiger

New cross-country evidence for 1965 to 1995 is presented on the link that runs from population change to economic growth. The estimates indicate that demographic change is a powerful determinant of income growth, operating mainly via the effect of changes in age structure. The estimates also indicate that the benefits of demographic change can be greatly magnified by a favourable policy environment. A case study of economic growth in Ireland suggests that the legalisation of contraception in 1980 resulted in a sharp decline in fertility and a sizeable increase in the relative share of the working-age population. This demographic shift, operating in conjunction with a favourable policy environment, can explain in large measure the birth of the Celtic Tiger. However, given demographic projections for Ireland, the Tiger’s roar may become less formidable as it continues to mature.

Epidemics and Economics

This paper discusses the links between income and infectious disease epidemics and asks how such links are affected by changing global circumstances. Having money and living in a prosperous society protects individuals against health setbacks in general and epidemics in particular. Healthy people get more education, are more productive in the work force, attract foreign investment, and save more. As better health leads to de-creases in family size, the consequent change in a country's age structure can boost eco-nomic growth. Epidemics can obstruct these effects by changing expectations about how well an economy will function and by deterring investment and tourism. In many instances, the immediate costs of an epidemic are apparent, while the long-term costs are unclear. However, when we include the value of human life in the cost, it becomes clear that epidemics are extremely costly. Preventing epidemics requires overcoming a range of obstacles, as does responding to an epidemic once it begins. Globally, long-term vulnerability to epidemics may decrease as development standards rise, but a more highly interconnected world may actually promote the occurrence of infectious disease epidemics.Epidemics, growth, development

Global Demography: Fact, Force and Future

In the past 50 years, the world accelerated its transition out of long-term demographic stability. As infant and child mortality rates fell, populations began to soar. In most countries, this growth led to falling fertility rates. Although fertility has fallen, the population continues to increase because of population momentum; it will eventually level off. In the meantime, demographic change has created a ‘bulge’ generation, which today appears in many countries as a large working-age population. This cohort will eventually become a large elderly population, in both developed and developing countries. Population growth has been the subject of great debate among economists and demographers. Until recently, most have agreed on a middle ground, in which population growth per se has no effect on economic growth. New evidence suggests that changes in the age structure of populations – in particular, a rising ratio of working-age to non-working-age individuals – leads to the possibility of more rapid economic growth, via both accounting and behavioural effects. The experiences of east Asia, Ireland and sub-Saharan Africa all serve as evidence of the effect of demographic change on economic growth (or lack thereof). Both internal migration (from rural to urban areas) and international migration complicate this picture. The overall implications of population growth for policy lie in the imperative for investments in health and education, and for sound policies related to labour, trade and retirement. Understanding future trends is essential for the development of good policy. Demographic projections can be quite reliable, but huge uncertainties – in the realms of health, changes in human life span, scientific advances, migration, global warming and wars – make overall predictions extremely uncertain.demography, growth, forecast, Asia, Ireland, Sub-Saharan, Africa

Demographics and Development Policy

By late 2011 there will be more than 7 billion people in the world, with 8 billion in 2025 and 9 billion before 2050. New technologies and institutions, and a lot of hard work have enabled us to avoid widespread Malthusian misery. Global income per capita has increased 150% since 1960, outpacing the growth of population. But we cannot be sure that incomes will continue to grow. One major difference is that now the world has a much larger population to support and, more notably, nearly all of the population increase that is projected in the coming decades will occur in the most politically, socially, and economically fragile countries. Fortunately, important insights into this demographic challenge have emerged in the past 10 years. Most important is that the rate of population growth is not the only demographic variable with consequences for economic growth and development: the age structure of the population is also fundamentally important.demography, development, growth, demographic transition