Demographic Age Structure Research Articles

The Situation of Public Employment in Small Villages in Hungary

The author started to deal with the public employment programme as an instrument of active employment policy in Hungary in the last 9 years. She perceived that the people living in disadvantaged settlements have limited labour market opportunities. In this research, the focus will be on small villages with less than 500 inhabitants in Hungary. In these settlements, the municipality is very often the only employer and there are almost no job opportunities available other than public employment. In small villages, the distorted demographic age structure, low educational attainment, low-income levels, inadequate infrastructure, physical distance from the cities, multi-generational unemployment, and often a high proportion of Roma inhabitants, make an already difficult and peripheral situation and employment difficult. The paper aims to analyse public employment programmes at a deeper level according to their role in the development of small villages and to identify good practices and successful public employment programmes in social cooperatives implemented by municipalities. The results of a questionnaire survey on the use of public employment will be presented as a commonly used employment solution in peripheral areas.

The Impact of Rural Enterprise Park Policy on the Income of Rural Residents: Evidence from China

Improving the income of rural residents plays an important part in sustainable rural development. Using a difference-in-difference (DID) approach and Chinese counties’ data from 2014 to 2019, this paper evaluates the effects of the rural enterprise park policy on the income of rural residents. We find that the policy significantly promotes rural residents’ income, and a series of additional tests suggest that the effects appear robust. We also find that stimulating entrepreneurial activities serves as a channel through which the policy affects rural incomes. Finally, the policy effects are mainly significant for counties with a higher level of human capital, a younger demographic age structure, and a higher level of financial development.

Impact of demographic age structure on energy consumption structure: Evidence from population aging in mainland China

Impact of demographic age structure on energy consumption structure: Evidence from population aging in mainland China

Future temperature-related mortality considering physiological and socioeconomic adaptation: a modelling framework

As the climate changes, it is crucial to focus not only on mitigation measures but also on building climate change resilience by developing efficient adaptation strategies. Although population adaptation is a major determinant of future climate-related health burden, it is not well accounted for in studies that project the health impact of climate change. We propose a methodological framework for temperature-related mortality that incorporates two simultaneous adaptation-sensitivity pathways: the physiological pathway, considering both heat adaptation and cold sensitivity, and the socioeconomic pathway, which is influenced by changes in future adaptive capacities. To demonstrate its utility we apply the framework to a case study mortality time-series dataset from Bavaria, Germany. In this modelling framework, we used extrapolated location-specific and age-specific baseline exposure-response functions and propose different future scenarios of cold sensitivity and heat adaptation on the basis of varying slopes of these exposure-response functions. We also incorporated future socioeconomic adaptation in the exposure-response functions using projections of gross domestic product under the respective shared socioeconomic pathways. Future adaptable fractions, representing the deaths avoided under each of the future scenarios, are projected under combinations of two climate change scenarios (shared socioeconomic pathway [SSP]1-2.6 and SSP3-7.0) and the respective plausible population projection scenarios (SSP1 and SSP3), also incorporating the future changes in demographic age structure and mortality. The case study for this framework was done for five districts in Bavaria, for both total non-accidental mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality. The baseline data was obtained for the period 1990-2006, and the future period was defined as 2083-99. In our Bavaria case study, average temperature was projected to increase by 2099 by an average of 1·1°C under SSP1-2.6 and by 4·1°C under SSP3-7.0. We observed the adaptable fraction to be largely influenced by socioeconomic adaptation for both total mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality, and for both climate change scenarios. For example, for total mortality, the highest adaptable fraction of 18·56% (95% empirical CI 10·77-23·67) was observed under the SSP1-2.6 future scenario, in the presence of socioeconomic adaptation and under the highest heat adaptation (10%) provided the cold sensitivity remains 0%. The cold adaptable fraction is lower than the heat adaptable fraction under all scenarios. In the absence of socioeconomic adaptation, population ageing will lead to higher temperature-related mortality. Our developed framework helps to systematically understand the effectiveness of adaptation mechanisms. In the future, socioeconomic adaptation is estimated to play a major role in determining temperature-related excess mortality. Furthermore, cold sensitivity might outweigh heat adaptation in the majority of locations worldwide. Similarly, population ageing is projected to continue to determine future temperature-related mortality. EU Horizon 2020 (EXHAUSTION).

Forecasting Interest Rates with Shifting Endpoints: The Role of the Demographic Age Structure

Forecasting Interest Rates with Shifting Endpoints: The Role of the Demographic Age Structure

The Conundrum of Low COVID-19 Mortality Burden in sub-Saharan Africa: Myth or Reality?

<h3>Key Messages</h3> Evidence suggests the demographic age structure of sub-Saharan Africa is the leading factor of the low morbidity and mortality of COVID-19 compared to other regions of the world. Widespread social mitigation strategies, such as lockdowns, have resulted in severe economic and societal consequences in terms of food security, adolescent pregnancy, gender-based violence, and disruptions in treating other diseases. It is imperative to weigh the risks and benefits of social mitigation strategies for future waves.

A Semiparametric Model for Bond Pricing with Life Cycle Fundamental

It is well documented in the literature that individual saving decisions vary with the life cycle and at the macroeconomic level, a changing demographic age structure affects aggregated savings, which then drives a slow movement of interest rates. In this paper, we propose a semiparametric affine arbitrage-free yield curve model with a low-frequency trend structure driven by the entire age distribution through a life cycle impact function. The unified framework not only fully explores the demographic age structure to robustly explain yield trend, but also utilizes efficiently the interest rate term structure to infer the S-shaped age impact function of the whole life cycle. We estimate the model with quarterly U.S. data from 1950s to present. The results show clearly that the model fits U.S. Treasury yields remarkably well in sample and outperforms popular alternative models out of sample. After removing the demography-driven trend especially pertaining to the baby boomer’s life cycle, the remaining term structure component is stationary with counter-cyclical risk premia.

Demographic Changes and Economic Growth in Pakistan: The Role of Capital Stock

Pakistan has experienced a decrease in population growth since the early 1990s leading to an increase in the ratio of working age population, known as demographic dividend. The demographic dividend may lead to higher savings and investments, which spurs economic growth. Given this postulation, the study is the first of its kind to analyse the impact of demographic variables on economic growth through physical capital for Pakistan from 1960 to 2014. In this regard, the demographic change is captured by taking four alternate measures, namely population growth, young age dependency ratio, old age dependency ratio and working age population ratio. In order to examine the channel effect, first the direct impact of demographic changes on physical capital is estimated. Later, the impact of demographically induced capital stock on economic growth is estimated. By using the FMOLS technique, the study concludes that the total negative impact is highest in the case of old age dependency, which means that higher old age dependency is the most threatening demographic change for economic growth. The least harmful demographic change is young age dependency. Moreover, the empirical findings highlight the importance of capital stock as the mediating channel in the demographic change and economic growth relationship. The study recommends effective long- term policies to increase youth employment and to enhance savings for maximising the benefits of demographic dividend. JEL Classification: J11; O47 Keywords: Direct and Indirect Impact, Demographic Transition, Demographic Age Structure, Capital Stock, FMOLS

The Effect of Demographics and Human Capital Formation on Economic Growth in BRICS and MINTs

The developing economies of the BRICS and MINTs have achieved significant economic growth rates and have been growing relatively at the expense of the advanced economies, reflecting their growing importance in the globalizing world economy. This study examines how they were able to distinguish themselves among other developing economies and are in the process of becoming developed economies. The research is conducted by doing a cross-country analysis between them and 35 advanced economies for the period 1992-2013 using OLS estimation method and takes the growth determinants of the human capital augmented Solow model as its basis. The result is that in addition to the amount of capital per worker, population growth rate and initial GDP per capita, human capital formation through the demographic age structure of the population does have a significant effect on economic growth depending on the age group. A one percentage point increase in the population younger than 15 results in a 0.400 percentage point increase in the GDP per capita growth rate, ceteris paribus. Similarly a middle-old aged workforce and ageing population has negative effects. In order to optimally benefit from their young workforce BRICS and MINTs need to invest in a higher educated, healthier and more participant workforce.

Demographic age structure and economic development: Evidence from Chinese provinces

In this paper, we examine the economic implications of demographic age structure in the context of regional development in China. We extend the development accounting framework by incorporating age structure and apply it to a panel data set of 28 Chinese provinces. We find that changes in age structure, as reflected by shifts in both the size and internal demographic composition of the working-age population, are significantly correlated with provincial economic growth rates. During our study period 1990–2005, the evolution of age structure accounts for nearly one-fifth of the growth in GDP per capita, of which more than half is attributable to shifts in the internal demographic composition of the working-age population. Differences in age structure across provinces also explain more than one-eighth of the persistent inter-provincial income inequality.

Existence, multiplicity and stability of endemic states for an age-structured S–I epidemic model

We study an S–I type epidemic model in an age-structured population, with mortality due to the disease. A threshold quantity is found that controls the stability of the disease-free equilibrium and guarantees the existence of an endemic equilibrium. We obtain conditions on the age-dependence of the susceptibility to infection that imply the uniqueness of the endemic equilibrium. An example with two endemic equilibria is shown. Finally, we analyse numerically how the stability of the endemic equilibrium is affected by the extra-mortality and by the possible periodicities induced by the demographic age-structure.

Youth dependency and total factor productivity

Recent literature shows empirical support for an effect of demographic age structure on economic growth. This literature does not give attention to the possibility that age structure might also have an effect on total factor productivity. Much of the recent literature on economic growth has stressed that an understanding of cross-country differences in output per worker is needed. That literature argues that the most important determinant of international differences in output per worker is differences in total factor productivity. This paper finds empirical evidence in cross-country data for the thesis that the youth dependency ratio (the population below working age divided by the population of working age) reduces ‘residual’ growth, which measures total factor productivity growth. For this reason, the paper demonstrates that age structure has an effect on the most important determinant of international differences in output per worker.

Age Structure, Income Distribution and Economic Growth

A recent body of empirical cross-country research has confirmed that income inequality is negatively related to economic growth. This paper provides an explanatory channel for this observed relationship. The novelty of our approach consists in the use of demographic channels to account for cross-country differentials in economic growth and income distribution. We present four models that have emerged as the most plausible transmission mechanisms linking inequality to slower growth. In each instance we demonstrate how a consideration of demographic age structure can complement the four mainstream accounts.

Can age structure forecast inflation trends?

The demographic age structure influences the aggregate of individual economic decisions. Standard macroeconomic models imply that inflation pressure will covary with the age distribution unless accommodated by monetary policy. We estimate the relation between inflation and age structure on annual OECD data 1960–1994 for 20 countries. The result is an age pattern of inflation effects consistent with the hypothesis that increases in the population of net savers dampen inflation, whereas especially the younger retirees fan inflation as they start consuming out of accumulated pension claims. This can be explained, for example, with life-cycle saving behavior combined with a cumulative process of inflation, but other mechanisms are also consistent with the results. In any case, the results suggest that demographic projections may be useful for long- and medium-term inflation forecasts. Forecasts from our panel model catch the general downward trend in OECD inflation in the 1990s. However, useful forecasts for individual countries need to incorporate more country-specific information.

Age structure effects and growth in the OECD, 1950-1990

Economic growth depends on human resources and human needs. The demographic age structure shapes both of these factors. We study five-year data from the OECD countries 1950–1990 in the framework of an age structure augmented neoclassical growth model with gradual technical adjustment. The model performs well in both pooled and panel estimations. The growth patterns of GDP per worker (labor productivity) in the OECD countries are to a large extent explained by age structure changes. The 50–64 age group has a positive influence, and the group above 65 contributes negatively, while younger age groups have ambiguous effects. However, the mechanism behind these age effects is not yet resolved.

Age structure and inflation – a Wicksellian interpretation of the OECD data

Wicksell's cumulative inflation process is founded on the separation of investment and saving decisions. The demographic age structure influences the aggregate of both these decisions, and therefore should be one of the determinants behind the inflation processes. We study annual OECD data 1960–1994 using age variables to explain inflation. Panel estimations of a reduced form inflation-age model show a robust correlation consistent with the hypothesis that increases in the population of net savers dampen inflation while especially the younger retirees fan inflation as they start consuming out of accumulated pension claims. This pattern is expected from life-cycle saving but could also be due to age effects on budget deficits or on money demand. Our results are potentially important for inflation forecasts and monetary policy.