In Search of Demographic Dividends: A Systematic Review of the Global Evidence

Elke Loichinger , Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB)
Andreas Backhaus , Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), Germany

After about two decades of research on the „demographic dividend“, time is ripe for a systematic assessment of the empirical evidence. Besides being the topic of demographic and economic analyses, this concept has been gaining wide use in developmental policy. The core of the concept centres on the argument that an increase in the share of the working-age population that goes together with a decline in fertility can boost economic growth - given a set of accompanying factors such as investments in education and health, the availability of productive jobs, financial infrastructure, and supportive economic institutions. While the empirical evidence for such a dividend initially mostly came from countries in East and South-east Asia, more and more country studies and comparative analyses have provided estimates of economic returns in connection with the described age-structure change. We expect that the employment of a variety of approaches and the consideration of many world regions will have an effect on the estimates of the impact of age-structure changes on economic growth. The core of the study is a systematic review of the existing empirical evidence for demographic dividends. This implies focussing only on studies that 1) establish an empirical link between age-structure change towards an increase in the share of the working-age population and economic growth and 2) quantify the size of this effect (i.e. estimate the size of the demographic dividend). Our results will be useful for evidence-based policy making in countries that are yet to realize their potential demographic dividends.

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 Presented in Session P27. Development, Gender, and the Environment