January 06, 2006
出生率降低会影响GDP吗
看经济学人，说几个国家的人口出生率降低让经济学家忧郁。甚至关系GDP
先是果，说人口出生率降低大部分是因为经济的衰退，以及社会资源的减少而带来的生活压力的增大，乃至成因为生存压力，自杀率高，酗酒。我看他们还不如直接说是失业率直接成因出生率。德国，意大利，日本，俄罗斯都是近年来经济较过去低迷，失业率高的国家。
后说是因，因为出生率低人口就会进入老龄化。那么GDP就会缓慢增长，人均GDP更低，因为人进入老龄那么生产力就低。拿社会福利的就多。这话，我有点质疑。首先是这几个国家基本都是靠高科技创造GDP的国家，没有多少人种庄稼。其次根据我的偶像GREENSPAN的理论，美国人都应该工作到65岁才应该拿社会保险及退休金，因为大家都长寿了人可以工作的年龄也增长了，他老人家70多岁还顶大梁呢。还有什么公司担心市场，还有政客担心军队等
然后又有说好，说出生率降低那么死亡率也会降低。而且现代的妇女们比60年代的妇女要多享受多少福阿。：)
我乐，想一下午这个问题。出生率和GDP之间应该有一个最佳比率值吧，每个国家在每个时期都应该不同。而这个最佳值应该我公司的6-segama一样，生产力和生产率加上生产资源如何合理运用，每个部门应该有多少人等等…我只是说，那GDP和出生率来成因果。这个题目一定早就人有书面著作了。
又见新闻说世界人口增长太快将在2050年达到80亿或90亿，说环境学家正担心环境保护和自然资源问题。
：)环境学家和经济学家本来就不是一家的。但都爱摆眉头深锁忧国忧民之大儒状。
Incredible shrinking countries
Jan 5th 2006
From The Economist print edition
Rich countries' populations are beginning to shrink. That's not necessarily bad news
DURING the second half of the 20th century, the global population explosion was the big demographic bogey. Robert McNamara, president of the World Bank in the 1970s, compared the threat of unmanageable population pressures with the danger of nuclear war. Now that worry has evaporated, and this century is spooking itself with the opposite fear: the onset of demographic decline.
The shrinkage of Russia and eastern Europe is familiar, though not perhaps the scale of it: Russia's population is expected to fall by 22% between 2005 and 2050, Ukraine's by a staggering 43%. Now the phenomenon is creeping into the rich world: Japan (see article) has started to shrink and others, such as Italy and Germany, will soon follow. Even China's population will be declining by the early 2030s, according to the UN, which projects that by 2050 populations will be lower than they are today in 50 countries.
Demographic decline worries people because it is believed to go hand in hand with economic decline. At the extremes it may well be the result of economic factors: pessimism may depress the birth rate and push up rates of suicide and alcoholism. But, in the main, demographic decline is the consequence of the low fertility that generally goes with growing prosperity. In Japan, for instance, birth rates fell below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman in the mid-1970s and have been particularly low in the past 15 years.
But if demographic decline is not generally a consequence of economic decline, surely it must be a cause? In a crude sense, yes. As populations shrink, GDP growth will slow. Some economies may even start to shrink, too. The result will be a loss of economic influence.
Governments hate the idea of a shrinking population because the absolute size of GDP matters for great-power status. The bigger the economy, the bigger the military, the greater the geopolitical clout: annual GDP estimates were first introduced in America in the 1940s as part of its war effort. Companies worry, too: they do not like the idea of their domestic markets shrinking. People should not mind, though. What matters for economic welfare is GDP per person.
The crucial question is therefore what the effect of demographic decline is on the growth of GDP per person. The bad news is that this looks likely to slow because working-age populations will decline more rapidly than overall populations. Yet this need not happen. Productivity growth may keep up growth in GDP per person: as labour becomes scarcer, and pressure to introduce new technologies to boost workers' efficiency increases, so the productivity of labour may rise faster. Anyway, retirement ages can be lifted to increase the supply of labour even when the population is declining.
People love to worry—maybe it's a symptom of ageing populations—but the gloom surrounding population declines misses the main point. The new demographics that are causing populations to age and to shrink are something to celebrate. Humanity was once caught in the trap of high fertility and high mortality. Now it has escaped into the freedom of low fertility and low mortality. Women's control over the number of children they have is an unqualified good—as is the average person's enjoyment, in rich countries, of ten more years of life than they had in 1960. Politicians may fear the decline of their nations' economic prowess, but people should celebrate the new demographics as heralding a golden age.
The downturn
Jan 5th 2006 | TOKYO
From The Economist print edition
But ageing employees need not be a problem, if companies adjust
JAPAN'S population is in decline. As of last October 1st, the government announced last week, giving the results of its latest five-yearly census, Japan's 127m-odd population was 19,000 fewer than a year earlier. Deaths had outstripped births for the first time in a period of peace since records have been kept. A falling population, the Yomiuri Shimbun duly wailed, meant that national survival was at stake. It may have a point: with no change in the current fertility rate—below 1.3 children per woman of child-bearing age—the last Japanese will die as soon as 2800.
Such are the perils of extrapolation. The more immediate demographic issue, though, is not so much the predicted fall in Japan's population, to as low as 100m in 2050, some say, but rather a shift in its composition. For as well as a low birth rate, life expectancy continues to lengthen (if that were not so, Japan's population would have started to fall some time ago).
Advertisement
Japan is greying at an unprecedented rate. Half a century ago, the proportion of the population over 65 stood at around 5%, well below that in America, Britain, France or Germany. Today, Japan's proportion of elderly, at 19%, is the highest in the world, and is forecast to reach almost 30% by 2025. In particular, an exceptionally large group of Japanese, the baby-boom generation, is making its way towards retirement. After the second world war, returning Japanese soldiers married, settled down and produced children in large numbers. Between 1947 and 1949, an average of 2.7m children were born a year (with another 2.3m in 1950). That was 30-40% more than in the succeeding years. It made for a more defined population pyramid than, say, America, where the baby-boomers were born over several more years. Today, the country's demographic profile looks something like a Japanese lantern. Soon, it will look more like a narrow-based urn (see chart).
From next year, the baby-boomers start to retire (60 being the minimum mandatory retirement age for now). The prospect is causing some anguish among policymakers. As youngsters, these people were the shock troops during the golden period of Japan's post-war economic transformation. Today, they are the custodians of years of accumulated technical and management skills. Their absence, some suggest, will lead to a shortage of skilled workers and mentors, a loss of productivity and even a surplus of office space. Mama-san in her bar in Ginza will miss this lot.
A less noticed aspect of the greying of Japan is the coming sharp decline in the population of the youngest workers. At present, some 16m Japanese are in their 20s, many of them children of baby-boomer parents. But the number in this age bracket will shrink by about 3m over the next decade. The consequence of all this is, first, that fewer workers will support an ever growing number of non-workers, other things being equal; and, second, that the demographic shape of the workforce is assuming that of an inverted pyramid, with fewer young workers at the base where once there were many. These factors combined lead some commentators to speak of dire consequences: of a national malaise led by a decline in living and even educational standards (soon, for instance, you will be able to gain a place at university simply by sitting the exam), accompanied by a government bankrupted by retirement obligations.
Yet this is all far from inevitable. Atsushi Seike, a labour economist at Keio University, argues that, since the great bulk of older workers are company employees, the solution lies in fixing the corporate employment and retirement systems to allow people more easily to work for longer. Those systems were designed for the age of the pyramid. When lots of young people were coming into the workforce, mandatory retirement was adopted by companies who wanted to make room for them. The policy was also useful for getting rid of surplus workers that employment-protection laws otherwise stopped from being laid off. As a result, nine-tenths of companies with more than 30 employees today set a mandatory retirement age, usually 60, the legal minimum.
The government and some companies are starting to respond to the new circumstances. Already, eligibility for the fixed part of the state's two-tier pension benefit has been raised to 62; it will be 65 by 2013. Eligibility for the bigger, earnings-related part still stands at 60 till 2013, but rises to 65 by 2025. To bring corporate practices into line, a law passed in 2004 takes effect in April requiring companies to raise the minimum mandatory retirement age to 65 by 2013—or, if that is not feasible, to provide employment until they are eligible for the fixed part of the state pension.
These adjustments, Mr Seike thinks, are just tinkering at the edges of an outdated system. Since life expectancy has leapt by nearly 30 years since the war, to 82 on average, then the minimum age for pensions should be raised swiftly at least to 67 and preferably to 70. Moreover, he believes, mandatory retirement—forcing people to stop when they are keen to work longer and capable of doing so—“has no place in a society that hopes to make full use of its older citizens.” It should be scrapped altogether. So should age discrimination in hiring: many job advertisements are closed to anyone over 45.
Certainly, most older Japanese want to work. Indeed, the average working man finally leaves the labour market when he is approaching 70. The problem is that he is given jobs that do not always match his abilities. A system of pay based on seniority rather than merit, which once ensured employee loyalty, now imposes a financial burden on companies, making them unwilling to keep even good workers in their former jobs. So getting rid of mandatory retirement would also put welcome pressure on companies to revise pay scales better to reflect ability rather than length of service. That, surely, would suit ambitious younger people too.