Age-Structural Transitions, Population Waves and “Political Arithmetick”

Abstract

This book is about age structural transitions and their policy implications in the 21 century. The book’s central thesis is that the population age structure in most countries around the world is undergoing cyclical, often irregular, change that will persist for many decades. These changing age structures will shape changes in human, social, institutional and economic needs and capacities, and pose significant challenges to policy makers. The description, analysis and prediction of these changes call for new methods and perspectives in several directions that are the subject of the chapters in this book. First, this book demonstrates that in virtually all countries over the coming decades age structural transitions will affect cohorts at all stages of the life cycle, not just the young or the old. Second, this book shows explicitly how to use analyses of human capital and human development as a way to link age structural transitions to policy needs and