ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2019
Education rather than age structure brings demographic dividend.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- China's demographic dividend has moved from age-based labor supply to skill-based productivity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Two universal pathways in demographic transition.Evolutionary human sciences · 2026Article
- Education as a Driver to the Demographic Dividend.Microbial biotechnology · 2025Article
- Intention to use modern contraceptives among current nonusers of reproductive age in Uganda.Contraception and reproductive medicine · 2024Article
- Forecasting Africa's fertility decline by female education groups.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- A dataset of human capital-weighted population estimates for 185 countries from 1970 to 2100.Scientific data · 2024Article
- Contemporary demographic challenges and population policies.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2024Article
- Examining the stability and change in age-crime relation in South Korea, 1980-2019: An age-period-cohort analysis.PloS one · 2024Article
- Blame it on my youth: the origins of attitudes towards immigration.Acta politica · 2024Article
- Fertility Has Been Framed: Why Family Planning Is Not a Silver Bullet for Sustainable Development.Studies in comparative international development · 2023Article
- Is Economic Growth Good for Population Health? A Critical Review.Canadian studies in population · 2023Review
- Demographic change and urban health: Towards a novel agenda for delivering sustainable and healthy cities for all.F1000Research · 2023Review
- Overcoming global inequality is critical for land-based mitigation in line with the Paris Agreement.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Inequality of public facilities between urban and rural areas and its driving factors in ten cities of China.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- US foreign aid restrictions and maternal and children's health: Evidence from the "Mexico City Policy".Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Potential demographic dividend for India, 2001 to 2061: a macro-simulation projection using the spectrum model.SN social sciences · 2022Article
- China's low fertility may not hinder future prosperity.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- The demographic dividend is more than an education dividend.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
- Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The relationship between population changes and economic growth has been debated since Malthus. Initially focusing on population growth, the notion of demographic dividend has shifted the attention to changes in age structures with an assumed window of opportunity that opens when falling birth rates lead to a relatively higher proportion of the working-age population. This has become the dominant paradigm in the field of population and development, and an advocacy tool for highlighting the benefits of family planning and fertility decline. While this view acknowledges that the dividend can only be realized if associated with investments in human capital, its causal trigger is still seen in exogenous fertility decline. In contrast, unified growth theory has established human capital as a trigger of both demographic transition and economic growth. We assess the relative importance of changing age structure and increasing human capital for economic growth for a panel of 165 countries during the time period of 1980-2015. The results show a clear dominance of improving education over age structure and give evidence that the demographic dividend is driven by human capital. Declining youth dependency ratios even show negative impacts on income growth when combined with low education. Based on a multidimensional understanding of demography that considers education in addition to age, and with a view to the additional effects of education on health and general resilience, we conclude that the true demographic dividend is a human capital dividend. Global population policies should thus focus on strengthening the human resource base for sustainable development.
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