Economic development and population ageing

The age-sex composition is very important in many aspects. It has direct impact on education and labor force planning, in addition to its interrelationship with several socio-economic, and demographic factors. It is also affected and shaped by demographic factors, especially fertility transitions. This is especially true in the case of Saudi Arabia, since fertility has declined gradually from high as 7 in 1985 to low rates around 3 births per woman in 2010 and thus possibly commencing what is called “Demographic Window”.
In light of the availability of new data from the recent census that was conducted in 2010, it has become necessary to identify and understand changes in demographic characteristics of the population, especially age and sex.
Therefore, utilizing the data from four population censuses, this study aims to evaluate the accuracy and explore age-sex transitional changes that occur during the period (1974-2010) and present spatial variations across the 13 Administrative Areas of Saudi Arabia
Finally the study emphasizes the some policy implications, especially those related to education, youth, and employment.

The objectives of this research are twofold:
1) The estimation of life expectancy at birth for small areas in Mexico for the years 1990, 2000, 2010
2) A spatio-temporal analysis of life expectancy in small areas exploring the existence of convergence clubs
The main purpose is to provide reliable life expectancy estimates at birth for small areas in Mexico. Once achieved, it extends by exploring trend and patterns of these estimates. The aim is to analyze the degree to which patterns of life expectancy are becoming more or less similar at sub-national scales considering between and within regional differences.
This study then considers the fact that small area estimates often convey difficulties because of the small number of events and insufficient exposures, which lead to uncertainty in estimating death rates. This in turn posits several methodological challenges, as the application of standard methods in the calculation of life expectancy, such as life tables, are in general suggested for populations above 5,000.
To undertake this research, data gathering will be possible from secondary sources in Mexico. Population, mortality, and all other required data can be obtained from the Instituto Nacional de Geografia e Informatica.

One of the defining features of the South African socioeconomic milieu is the stark inequalities that exist across, for example, race, gender, and location. Paired with this, high unemployment means that poverty is rife. In addressing the challenges of poverty and inequality, South Africa’s post-apartheid governments have expanded the social welfare system, while prioritising expenditure on education, healthcare and housing. The effect has been a rapid increase in resource flows from government to households: growth in social spending in the first decade of democracy outstripped growth in general government expenditure and, by 2011, 30 percent of the country’s population was in receipt of a welfare grant.

Using the National Transfer Account (NTA) methodology pioneered by Lee and Mason, this paper investigates the impact that this policy change has had on intergenerational transfers between 1995 and 2005. Building on earlier work that has estimated South Africa’s first set of accounts (for 2005), the paper analyses the changes in private consumption and private transfers in response to this growth in public consumption and public transfers. With public transfers to both young and old increasing over time, the paper will investigate the changing patterns of net public (and private) transfers across age cohorts.

The pyramid shaped population age structure of Sri Lanka is now turning to a shape of a barrel. The age structure transition, covering the period of 1991 to 2030, has produced a demographic window of opportunity, which is conducive for an economic take-off in the country. During this period, the proportion of the people in the working ages (aged 15-59/64 years) is noted to be significantly larger than the proportion in the dependent age categories (aged less than 15 and 60/65 years and above). Nevertheless if the working age is defined as 15-59 years, the most lucrative part of the demographic window would fade away by 2017. Thus the remaining period of the dividend will be as short as only five years. The mere existence of a favourable demographic dividend would not be effective without a proper environment for economic acceleration. Nevertheless in a congenial environment of political stability, adequate savings, investment potential including the ability to draw FDI, development of human capital, productivity and knowledge based economy, the optimum utilization of the demographic window to gain economic acceleration would materialize. Failing to capitalize this best demographic environment immediately along with the rapid aging process, the Sri Lankan planners will encounter with demographic turbulence in the near future.

In many countries of the world, youths suffer high rates of unemployment. Statistics published by the OECD (for the second quarter of 2012), show unemployment rates, among people aged 15 to 24 (17.1%), a little more than double of the unemployment rates for the general population (7.9%). Although youth unemployment has remained high during the last decade, their values continue to be a source of constant concern.

One of the arguments offered to explain the high youth unemployment, points out that this is affected by population dynamics, as proposed by the Easterlin´s hypothesis.

Using a panel data model, the objective of this paper is to explore the influence of changes in the age structure, on the youth unemployment rate. Our analysis comprises the 33 OECD country members, from 2000 to 2011. Preliminary results suggest the presence of a crowding out effect among male youngsters 20-24.

Many low-fertility nations, and some medium-fertility nations, have adopted pronatalist views and policies in recent years in response to increasing concern about the economic impacts of population ageing. This is despite demographic analysis demonstrating that manageable rates of population growth provide only a limited deferral of ageing, which is primarily a product of longevity. New insights into the economic cost of population growth, and the required expansion of infrastructure and service capacity to accommodate it, provide a clearer comparison of the costs and benefits of this policy shift. It reveals that population growth is much more costly than the extent of ageing it may off-set. The perspectives and misconceptions from economic conventions, accounting and semantics are explored to explain the blindness of public policymakers to the perverse impacts of a pronatalist stance.

Indonesia is facing demographic revolution, changed in age structure as well as rapid urbanization. The percentage of aging population rises to13.9 % in 2030. The Indonesia urbanization rise to level over than 70%. The data is from special assessment study of age friendly city in 14 cities of Indonesia which interviewed 2100 males and females of pre ageing and ageing population in 14 cities, and over than 250 multisectors informants. In addition to descriptive analysis of each indicator, a composite index of total and by each aspect are created using 95 WHO indicators of age friendly cities to make it easier convey the message to policy makers and stakeholders. The study provides a baseline assessment toward age friendly cities in 2030 and addition recommend on the step and alternative policy that could be adopted by policy makers and the other stakeholders. The study found that, the level of readiness of the all the 14 cities in Indonesia towards age friendly cities is only 43%. Among 8 aspects, two are leading: social participation and communication support & health services. On the other hand, the most weak aspect of the age friendly cities is civil participation & employment. Comparing all cities, small cities are more progressive in the fulfillment of the age friendly city indicators compared to the big cities.

As a result of declining birth rates, improvements in health care, and a slow down in mortality at older ages we are living in an increasingly aging world. The impact of population aging (PA) on infectious diseases, and in particular the role of antibiotic resistant pathogens, has been understudied. The elderly consume relatively large amounts of antibiotics, have higher rates of hospitalization, and many are immune-suppressed; therefore PA could have significant implications for future rates of antibiotic resistance. The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of population structure (specifically the increasing share of the population that will be 65+) on antibiotic resistance in the US. Data on antibiotic resistance and consumption, hospitalization rates, and socioeconomic factors, stratified by age and geographic region, are available from 2008-10. Antibiotic resistance data will come from the Surveillance Network database, while antibiotic use data will come from IMS Health’s Xponent database. Hospitalization data is available from the National Inpatient Survey. Socioeconomic data is available from the US census bureau. We expect to find that, controlling for other factors, an increase in the proportion of the population above the age of 65 has had a strong and positive effect on antibiotic resistance.

Unemployment is very important macroeconomic indicator. It reacts to changes of other indicators in economy. An analysis of interaction among employment and unemployment and GDP, investments and inflation is introduced in the article with a special attention to population ageing. The objective is to present relation of population structure reflecting ageing process and labor market and to prove or reject hypothesis that unemployment rate, employment rate and participation rate are related to GDP growth and their reaction is delayed by one or two quarters. In the analysis it is possible to monitor effects of economic crisis as well.
The paper presents several correlation analyses applied on both annually and quarterly distributed data in the Czech Republic. Correlation was found between proportion of seniors in the population and employment rate and participation rate. Unemployment, on the other hand, is not correlated with population structure; rather it depends on macroeconomic indicators. Relationship between unemployment rate and GDP growth rate was proved for data started in Q1/2007 and for delay of two and three quarters.

CO-AUTHORS: Jitka Langhamrova, Jana Langhamrova, Ondrej Simpach, Petra Dotlacilova

In this paper, the author used a Predator-Prey Model to study how the
pension reform in China(increasing the integrated level of pension system) can influence the relationship between governments and working individuals. We separate governments as central government and local governments. The central government play a role of intelligent designer while the local governments play as predator and the working individuals are considered to be preys. We find that to increase the level of integrate of the pension system is not only necessary to build a solid social security, but also to accelerate the economy. While during the
reform, a destabilization may happen and require extra attention.