Population Change and Economic Growth: The Long-Term Outlook

Abstract

The rate of growth of GDP can be expressed as the sum of the rates of growth of the population, the proportion of the population from which the labour force is drawn, the overall labour force participation rate, the employment rate, and the aggregate labour productivity ratio. Making use of this simple accounting identity we examine the contributions of the various components to the growth of GDP and GDP per capita in the half-century 1951-2001, decade by decade, and the prospective contributions to future growth under alternative demographic, participation rate, and productivity assumptions.population change; economic growth; simulation