The Demographic “Dividends”: challenges for the near future

Closely related to the demographic dynamics and the changes in reproductive behavior, it has been observed a marked increase of women participation in economic activities. We talk about a gender dividend insofar as this process may turn into a direct contribution of women to the countries' economic growth, complementing and fostering the demographic dividend.
Based on the data from household surveys and projections of economically active population for the Latin American countries, which are available at ECLAC, this study aims at describing and projecting women’s labor force participation in economic activity in a context of gender equality.
This study intends to be a contribution to the theoretical and methodological development of the topic and to contribute to raising awareness and capacity in the countries of the region in assessing the economic impact of demographic changes and incorporating a gender-based approach into sustainable development and poverty reduction policies.

The study purpose is to understand projected changes in the population age structure, a critical condition for realizing demographic dividend, through 2100 in sub-Saharan Africa. Specific aims are: to estimate windows for advance investment and windows for benefiting from the economically favorable age structure, to compare the patterns of age structure changes to those in other less-developed regions, and to assess sensitivity of results across different assumptions in fertility decline projection, using the World Population Prospects 2012 Revision data. Three patterns emerged: a pattern close to that in other less-developed regions, another pattern suggesting much slower demographic transition in majority countries, and a final pattern where fertility decline is too slow to have substantial impact on the age structure. Even in the second pattern, the absolute population size increase may challenge realizing demographic dividend. Finally, about a half-child differences in TFR projection assumptions indicated significant variation in age structure changes.

Demographic advantage contributes a large share of economic growth. This study tries to find out how far the presence of demographic window in BRICS countries is affecting efficiently in the growth of their economies compared to few selected developed economies (Japan, UK and USA). It is seen in this study that the contribution of demographic component (growth of share of worker in population) in growth of per capita GDP is higher in BRICS countries (except Russian Federation) compared to that of the developed nations. This study also finds out that the speed of convergence to steady state equilibrium income for BRICS is faster than that of the eight countries (BRICS and three developed nations) together. Education has a positive effect on economic growth for eight country model. The effect of growth of working age population to population ratio on growth in per capita GDP is more in case of BRICS countries. This indicates the substantial effect of demographic component on economic growth of BRICS countries particularly for China, India and South Africa since they are still going through the demographic dividend phase of transition.

This paper outlines how a potential ‘collateral’ demographic dividend is presently arising in New Zealand, as the relatively youthful Māori population (median age 23) goes through its dividend years alongside its ageing, mainly European-origin counterpart (median age 40). As with the conventional first and second dividend periods, converting the collateral dividend to an economic windfall will not occur in and of itself – that requires identification of the window of opportunity, proactive investment in social capital, and political will. The paper locates the arguments in the context of New Zealand’s major industrial groupings which already have fewer employed people at labour market entry than exit age, especially in rapidly ageing regional areas which paradoxically have a disproportion of youthful Māori residents.