{ "title": "Changing Demographics and Economic Growth – IMF F&D", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom", "canonical": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom", "overlayPath": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom/index.md", "summary": "Harvard’s David Bloom explains why changing demographics around the world can be a potent driver of the speed and process of economic growth and development.", "sections": [ { "heading": "Overview", "content": "- Author: DAVID E. BLOOM, professor of economics and demography at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.\n- Publication: F&D Magazine, Population 2020, March 2020.\n- Core thesis: Demographics—population size, growth, and age structure—are potent drivers of the pace and process of economic growth and development, but they do not unilaterally determine outcomes; economic incentives, policy, institutions, technology, cultural norms, and behavior mediate demographic effects." }, { "heading": "Population growth: trends and distributional shifts", "content": "- Historical and projected milestones:\n - World population: 3 billion in 1960; 6 billion around 2000; projected to surpass 9 billion by 2037.\n - Peak annual population growth rates: in excess of 2 percent in the late 1960s; about 1 percent currently; projected to be half that by 2050.\n- Challenges of rapid population growth:\n - Increased needs for food, clothing, housing, education, and infrastructure.\n - Need to absorb sizable cohorts into productive employment.\n - Heightened environmental protection demands.\n- Distributional shifts:\n - Less developed countries: 68 percent of world population in 1950; 84 percent today.\n - Nearly all of the nearly 2 billion net additions to world population projected over the next three decades will occur in less developed regions.\n - China: 1.44 billion people currently, largest national population.\n - India: 1.38 billion currently; projected to be 1.50 billion by the end of this decade, overtaking China (China projected peak 1.46 billion).\n - Nigeria and Pakistan projected to surge in population between 2020 and 2050; Nigeria projected to overtake the United States to become the world’s third-most-populous nation.\n - Asia: 60 percent share of world population today and 54 percent in 2050.\n - Negative population growth projected in 2020–50 for 61 countries and territories currently home to 29 percent of the world’s people; sharpest projected decline is −23 percent for Bulgaria." }, { "heading": "Age structure dynamics and the demographic dividend", "content": "- Mechanism:\n - Fertility and mortality history determine age structure; mortality declines often create baby booms followed by fertility decline, producing large cohorts in peak working and saving ages.\n - A rising share of working-age population can enhance per capita productive capacity and create a window for rapid income growth and poverty reduction.\n- Risks:\n - Failure to generate sufficient jobs for large cohorts of young adults can lead to social, political, and economic instability.\n- Dependency ratio dynamics:\n - Dependency ratio defined as the inverse of the working-age to non-working-age ratio; measures economic pressure on working-age individuals.\n - 1990: dependency ratio in more developed regions 0.68 versus 1.04 in less developed regions.\n - 2020: dependency ratio 0.70 in more developed regions and 0.75 in less developed regions.\n - 2050 projection: dependency ratio 0.89 in more developed regions and 0.77 in less developed regions.\n - Africa is the only region in which this ratio is projected to decline by 2050.\n- Countries projected to experience largest gains (2020–2030) in the ratio of working-age to non-working-age populations:\n - Nepal, Jordan, Bhutan, and Eswatini.\n- Policy implications by demographic stage:\n - Countries without appreciable demographic transitions (examples: Chad, the Central African Republic, Somalia, Sierra Leone):\n - Policies to catalyze transitions: investment in infant and child survival, expanded vaccine coverage, access to well-provisioned and appropriately staffed primary health care systems.\n - Populations with health and survival gains:\n - Policies to enable fertility decline: promoting girls’ education; access to reproductive health and family planning services.\n - Countries with large working-age shares:\n - Policies to realize demographic dividend: support competitive labor and capital markets; equip workers with human capital; build infrastructure; sound macroeconomic management; carefully designed trade policies; good governance." }, { "heading": "Global graying: scale, distribution, and consequences", "content": "- Scale of aging:\n - Expectation to add 1 billion older individuals in the next three to four decades, atop the more than 700 million older people today.\n - The 85+ age group projected to surpass half a billion in the next 80 years.\n- Country and regional variances:\n - Japan: 28 percent of its population 65 and over (currently), triple the world average.\n - By 2050, 29 countries and territories will have larger elder shares than Japan has today.\n - Republic of Korea projected to reach an elder share of 38.1 percent and median age 56.5 in 2050 (Korea expected to overtake Japan’s median age 54.7).\n - Japan’s current median age: 48.4; Africa’s current median age: 19.7.\n - Three decades ago: more than three times as many adolescents and young adults (15- to 24-year-olds) as older people; three decades from now these age groups will be roughly on par.\n- Income-group dynamics:\n - Sharpest growth in numbers of older people will occur in countries currently classified as middle income, which make up 74 percent of the world population.\n - Older-population share in middle-income countries is increasing faster than in low- and high-income counterparts.\n - Middle-income countries projected to have appreciably greater real incomes when their older-population shares reach comparably elevated levels compared with current high-income countries, contradicting the claim that developing economies are getting old before they get rich.\n- Economic and fiscal concerns:\n - Potential downward pressure on economic growth from labor and capital shortages and falling asset prices as older cohorts liquidate investments.\n - Fiscal stress from rising pension liabilities and health and long-term care costs associated with chronic diseases.\n - Offsetting factors: productive nonmarket activities by older people (volunteer work, caregiving)." }, { "heading": "Policy responses and innovations to address aging", "content": "- Fiscal and pension reforms:\n - Policy reforms to promote financial sustainability and intergenerational equity of health and pension financing.\n - Raising the legal age of retirement to ease fiscal and labor market burdens.\n- Pronatalist policies:\n - Pronatalist tax incentives are an option for the long term, but their effect on fertility is thus far unproven.\n- Health and prevention:\n - Increase health systems’ emphasis on early detection and disease prevention (examples: better awareness of benefits of physical activity; subsidization of physical activity).\n- Migration and labor supply:\n - Relax institutional and economic barriers to international immigration from regions with relatively large working-age populations to alleviate labor shortages.\n- Technological and institutional innovations:\n - New drugs to slow the process of aging and add healthy years.\n - Assistive devices such as robots.\n - Institutional innovations: new models of home health care; public transportation systems; urban design; financial instruments." }, { "heading": "The bottom line", "content": "- Demographic indicators have changed dramatically since the early 1950s and are poised for equally dramatic changes in coming decades.\n- Population aging is displacing population growth as the primary demographic focus, but both phenomena will have profound repercussions for indicators and determinants of economic well-being and progress.\n- Demographics are not fixed; their economic implications are responsive to policy, institutions, technology, and behavior.\n- Adopting a business-as-usual approach to population aging would be irresponsible.\n\nSource: Changing Demographics and Economic Growth – IMF F&D\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- السكان في عام 2020\n - السكان في عام 2020 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - السكان في عام 2020 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Changing Demographics and Economic Growth – IMF F&D\n - Changing Demographics and Economic Growth – IMF F&D (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - Changing Demographics and Economic Growth – IMF F&D (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Población 2020 ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2020\n - Población 2020 ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2020 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - Población 2020 ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2020 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Population 2020\n - Population 2020 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - Population 2020 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- 2020年世界人口形势 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2020年3月号·第57卷·第1期\n - 2020年世界人口形势 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2020年3月号·第57卷·第1期 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - 2020年世界人口形势 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2020年3月号·第57卷·第1期 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom" } ], "bullets": [ "[Markdown version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom/index.md)", "[Structured JSON version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom/index.json)", "[Bundle manifest](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom/bundle-manifest.json)", "Authors: DAVID E BLOOM", "Published: March 1, 2020", "Author: DAVID E. BLOOM, professor of economics and demography at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.", "Publication: F&D Magazine, Population 2020, March 2020.", "Core thesis: Demographics—population size, growth, and age structure—are potent drivers of the pace and process of economic growth and development, but they do not unilaterally determine outcomes; economic incentives, policy, institutions, technology, cultural norms, and behavior mediate demographic effects.", "Historical and projected milestones:", "Challenges of rapid population growth:", "Distributional shifts:", "Mechanism:", "Risks:", "Dependency ratio dynamics:", "Countries projected to experience largest gains (2020–2030) in the ratio of working-age to non-working-age populations:", "Policy implications by demographic stage:", "Scale of aging:", "Country and regional variances:", "Income-group dynamics:", "Economic and fiscal concerns:", "Fiscal and pension reforms:", "Pronatalist policies:", "Health and prevention:", "Migration and labor supply:", "Technological and institutional innovations:", "Demographic indicators have changed dramatically since the early 1950s and are poised for equally dramatic changes in coming decades.", "Population aging is displacing population growth as the primary demographic focus, but both phenomena will have profound repercussions for indicators and determinants of economic well-being and progress.", "Demographics are not fixed; their economic implications are responsive to policy, institutions, technology, and behavior.", "Adopting a business-as-usual approach to population aging would be irresponsible.", "**السكان في عام 2020**", "**Changing Demographics and Economic Growth – IMF F&D**", "**Población 2020 ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2020**", "**Population 2020**", "**2020年世界人口形势 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2020年3月号·第57卷·第1期**" ], "related": [ { "title": "السكان في عام 2020", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/ar/bloom.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/ar/bloom.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/ar/bloom.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Changing Demographics and Economic Growth – IMF F&D", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Población 2020 ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2020", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/es/cambios-demograficos-y-crecimiento-economico-bloom.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/es/cambios-demograficos-y-crecimiento-economico-bloom.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/es/cambios-demograficos-y-crecimiento-economico-bloom.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Population 2020", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/fr/evolution-demographique-et-croissance-economique-bloom.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/fr/evolution-demographique-et-croissance-economique-bloom.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/fr/evolution-demographique-et-croissance-economique-bloom.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "2020年世界人口形势 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2020年3月号·第57卷·第1期", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/zh/bloom.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/zh/bloom.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2020/march/zh/bloom.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } } ], "alternates": { "markdown": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom/index.md", "json": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom/index.json", "bundleManifest": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2020/03/changing-demographics-and-economic-growth-bloom/bundle-manifest.json" }, "generatedAtUtc": "2026-09-15T05:44:27.122Z" }