Wall Street Journal (May 17)
“American women are having children at the lowest rate on record, with the number of babies born in the U.S. last year dropping to a 30-year low…. The figures suggest that a number of women who put off having babies after the 2007-09 recession are forgoing them altogether.” This could spell trouble as America’s aging population is already “creating a funding imbalance that strains the social safety net that supports the elderly.”
Tags: Aging, Babies, Children, Elderly, Funding, Population, Recession, Safety net, U.S., Women
The Economist (June 11)
Like Japan, South Korea is also facing a major demographics challenge, especially if they can’t succeed in upping the percentage of working women. “With a fertility rate of around 1.2 babies per woman, South Korea’s labour force is set to shrink dramatically. If the country fails to make use of half its talent pool, stagnation looms. An OECD study estimated that if the labour-force participation rate for men and women was the same by 2030, GDP growth would increase by 0.9 percentage points annually. Since 2010 growth has fallen from 6.5% to 2.6%.”
Tags: Babies, Demographics, Fertility, GDP, Growth, Japan, South Korea, Stagnation, Working women
