Ageing and Economic Performance: Dilemmas and Dichotomies

Authors

• Daniel Rauhut

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23979/fypr.45076

Keywords:

ageing, economic growth, methodology, causality, regional differences, local differences, long- and short term effects, theoretical underdevelopment

Abstract

The process of ageing is not a new phenomenon. What implications ageing will have
on economic performance are unclear both in terms of magnitude and direction.
Notwithstanding this however much that passes for research into the effects of
demographic change is often highly partial and generally short-sighted often
culminating in alarmist conclusions and providing a clarion call for significant
policy changes based, ultimately, on rather thin scientific justification.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the methodological and theoretical dilemmas
and dichotomies concerning the interrelationship between ageing and economic
performance. There is actually little evidence that demographic changes per se will
cause changes in the economic performance. By considering demography as destiny
or the determinant for economic development, an artificial dichotomy is created.
Furthermore, the spatial aspects are in general left outside the analysis. Ageing and
depopulation are not national problems, but local and in some cases regional.