This paper examines the extent to which changes in working-age shares associated with population aging might slow economic growth in upcoming years. We first analyze the economic effects of changing working-age shares in a standard empirical growth model using country panel data from...

In the postwar period, when fertility dropped substantially, immigration more than made up for the drop in population growth, and from 1950 to 2020, population increased by 73%, double the European rate, in a country with population density already among the highest in Europe. Yet, there never...

We assess Africa's prospects for enjoying a demographic dividend. While fertility rates and dependency ratios in Africa remain high, they have started to decline. According to UN projections, they will fall further in the coming decades such that by the mid-21st century the ratio of the...

We review the foundations of the economic development-contraception nexus, focusing on the pathways through which economic factors drive contraceptive adoption and change. We investigate the channels through which the relationship between economic development and contraceptive dynamics are...

This paper provides an overview of the employment situation of young and old workers in the EU Member States, setting out the most recent development during the crisis and dealing with policies implemented to promote the employment of both groups. The evidence collected shows that there is no...

Population ageing will be the dominant feature of the world's demographic landscape in the coming decades, raising concerns about labor productivity and about economic outcomes at both the individual, enterprise, and macro levels. The articles in this special issue of Labour Economics define and...

Paul Samuelson made a series of important contributions to population theory for humans and other species, evolutionary theory, and the theory of age structured life cycles in economic equilibrium and growth. The work is highly abstract but much of it was intended to illuminate issues of...