INDA Vision New Orleans 2005

Richard Jackson of the Centre for Strategic International Studies gave a stark warning: population ageing will wreck the economy of any nation that fails to
prepare for it.

Fertility in every developed country has fallen below the replacement rate

Life expectancy has been rising rapidly throughout the world

In many fast ageing countries the size of the working population will shrink dramatically

Public pension deficits threaten to devour the savings of the developed world

Retirement spending will leave little room for National Defense

In response to questions, Mr Jackson said that the 30-year demographics are accurate and certain. (If we doubled fertility rates tomorrow, it would be twenty years before the effect on the economy would be felt.) China’s demographics have a huge destabiliser built in: the unusually high ratio of boys to girls (1.17 overall, but 1.5 for second children) resulting from the population control policy. This will create a “daughter-in-law shortage” and hence a shortage of the traditional carers for the elderly.