Ageing and economic performance

This paper presents a brief review of the literature on the probable economic effects of population ageing in the industrial economies over the next 4 decades. Outline information is provided about short-run and long-run changes in the size and age structure of the population. The implications of these population movements for the labour market, for consumption, for savings and investment and for social security systems are then considered. The paper notes that economic research findings are very tentative, and that research is constrained by substantial ignorance of many of the important linkages between economic and demographic systems.