The Economic Effect of the Graying of the Population

Important socio-economic trends are based on demographics. For instance, a number of scholars, such as Jackson and Howe (2008), are concerned about a current demographic trend that runs counter to past trends. Most notably, they are concerned that the great powers (in terms of wealth, military strategy, or population) are aging at remarkably divergent rates. The idea of rapidly growing populations through the developing world is also an outdated trend. Only a few areas of the developing world, such as sub-Saharan Africa and some Muslim countries, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen, have high fertility rates. Fertility has trended downward in most other developing countries. The concern is that aging populations will not prosper. For the purposes of this study, the most interesting result, besides the insignificance of population density and the population growth rate, is that the age structure had the biggest impact of all the explanatory variables on GDP growth.