Demographic changes refers to the changes in the characteristics of a human population or part of it, especially its size, growth, density, distribution, and statistics regarding birth, marriage, disease, and death.
Demographic changes have resulted in unprecedented changes in the world today and will continue to cause changes in world’s politics, economies and societies. Changes in population is already affecting many countries now. Two of these countries include Singapore and Japan. Japan is currently the "oldest" country in the world. In 1950, it was one of the "youngest" countries in the world; it had a median age of 22. Now its median age is 41, and by 2025 it will be approaching 50. What's happened in Japan is a combination of low immigration and birthrates that are more than one third below the "replacement level"—that is, the number of births a society needs to have enough children to replace the people who die.
As a consequence, there are fewer and fewer children as a percentage of the total population, and the median age rises. And, of course, the senior population in Japan is also soaring, because the Japanese enjoy the highest life expectancy in the world.
These countries have to implement various policies to facilitate the rising ageing population prevalent in them. These is also the prospect of smaller numbers of taxpayers facing a burden of supporting greater numbers of dependants which has led many to question the future of tax-funded welfare in general and healthcare in particular, although the dependency ratio may also be affected by changing attitudes to work, education and training.
The proportion of women in the workforce is predicted to increased, and this may indicate that the trend towards later births will continue. Delaying pregnancy can lead to greater complications, suggesting a need for more complex and specialist maternity medical and obstetric services.
It is estimated that we are adding 74 million people every year into the world. It's not a trivial addition to world population, particularly at a time when cropland is becoming so scarce and water shortages are now cropping up. Not only is almost all the projected population growth going to be in the developing world, but the vast majority of the nearly three billion people to be added by 2050 will come in countries where water tables are already falling and wells are going dry. That's not a recipe for economic progress and political stability.
Aging will tremendously affect a country’s economic growth as there will be an increasingly smaller pool of able, fit and talented people ready for the bustling world experience. Older people aren't as innovative, technically savvy, or willing to take risks as younger people. So we could have shrinking economies with shrinking numbers of workers and consumers, and an older, less innovative, less well-educated workforce. All of these factors could combine to create tremendous economic adversity.
For example, A nation's economic output, its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is the number of workers times the average income per worker. With a labour force shrinkage of about 1 percent a year, Japan could see long recessions lasting a decade or more.
Almost all of Eastern European nations are also facing shrinking population and there a possibility of seeing the decline of Europe and Japan as economic and political powers. They will become cauldrons of permanent economic and fiscal crisis. Anybody who's looked at the news over the past year knows that it's been a period of constant pension reform in these countries. We have entered what is going to be a constant cycle now, a constant drumbeat of reforms.
Reference: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/voic-brow.html
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2006/wp0609.pdf
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