IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ausecr/v35y2002i1p29-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Would a Decrease in Fertility Be a Threat to Living Standards in Australia?

Author

Listed:
  • Ross S. Ross S.
  • Ian M. McDonald

Abstract

Falling rates of fertility in many countries have led to concerns that low fertility is a threat to future living standards. In this article we report simulations of living standards for Australia that take into account the effect of demographic change. These simulations show that reduced fertility would actually increase living standards, albeit by a small amount. We also present projections of government social outlays. These projections suggest that reductions in fertility will have an insignificant or tiny tax‐disincentive effect on GDP, thereby reinforcing our conclusion that reductions in fertility are not a threat to future living standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Ross S. Ross S. & Ian M. McDonald, 2002. "Would a Decrease in Fertility Be a Threat to Living Standards in Australia?," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 35(1), pages 29-44, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:35:y:2002:i:1:p:29-44
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.00221
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.00221
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8462.00221?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ronald Lee & Jonathan Skinner, 1999. "Will Aging Baby Boomers Bust the Federal Budget?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 117-140, Winter.
    2. Peter McDonald, 2000. "The Shape of an Australian Population Policy," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 33(3), pages 272-280, September.
    3. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, April.
    4. repec:bla:ecorec:v:77:y:2001:i:237:p:117-34 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Glenn Withers, 2000. "Population Issues and Options: Investing in People," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 33(3), pages 265-271, September.
    6. Fougere, Maxime & Merette, Marcel, 1999. "Population ageing and economic growth in seven OECD countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 411-427, August.
    7. Ross S. Guest & Ian M. McDonald, 2000. "Population Ageing and Projections of Government Social Outlays in Australia," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 33(1), pages 49-64, March.
    8. Richard A. Easterlin, 2000. "The Worldwide Standard of Living since 1800," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 7-26, Winter.
    9. David N. Weil, 1999. "Population Growth, Dependency, and Consumption," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 251-255, May.
    10. David M. Cutler & James M. Poterba & Louise M. Sheiner & Lawrence H. Summers, 1990. "An Aging Society: Opportunity or Challenge?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 21(1), pages 1-74.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fehr, Hans & Jokisch, Sabine & Kotlikoff, Laurence J., 2008. "Fertility, mortality and the developed world's demographic transition," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 455-473.
    2. Guest, Ross S., 2006. "Population ageing, capital mobility and optimal saving," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 89-102, January.
    3. Barbara Berkel & Axel Börsch‐Supan & Alexander Ludwig & Joachim Winter, 2004. "Sind die Probleme der Bevölkerungsalterung durch eine höhere Geburtenrate lösbar?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 5(1), pages 71-90, February.
    4. Creina Day, 2016. "Can Theory Explain the Evidence on Fertility Decline Reversal?," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 49(2), pages 136-145, February.
    5. Kudrna, George & Tran, Chung & Woodland, Alan, 2015. "The dynamic fiscal effects of demographic shift: The case of Australia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 105-122.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Axel Börsch‐Supan & Alexander Ludwig & Joachim Winter, 2006. "Ageing, Pension Reform and Capital Flows: A Multi‐Country Simulation Model," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 73(292), pages 625-658, November.
    2. Ross S. Guest & Ian M. Mcdonald, 2004. "Effect of World Fertility Scenarios on International Living Standards," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 80(s1), pages 1-12, September.
    3. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2091 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Frank T. Denton & Byron G. Spencer, 1998. "Economic Costs of Population Aging," Quantitative Studies in Economics and Population Research Reports 339, McMaster University.
    5. de la Croix, David & Docquier, Frederic & Liegeois, Philippe, 2007. "Income growth in the 21st century: Forecasts with an overlapping generations model," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 621-635.
    6. Dekle, Robert, 2004. "Financing consumption in an aging Japan: The role of foreign capital inflows and immigration," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 506-527, December.
    7. David Weil, 2006. "Population Aging," Working Papers 2006-09, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    8. Goyal, Amit, 2004. "Demographics, Stock Market Flows, and Stock Returns," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 115-142, March.
    9. Guest, Ross, 2007. "Innovations in the macroeconomic modelling of population ageing," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 101-119, January.
    10. Kogel, Tomas, 2005. "Youth dependency and total factor productivity," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 147-173, February.
    11. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2091 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Xinxin Wang & Jingjing Hong & Pengpeng Fan & Shidan Xu & Zhixian Chai & Yubo Zhuo, 2021. "Is China’s urban–rural difference in population aging rational? An international comparison with key indicators," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(3), pages 1866-1891, September.
    13. Douglas W. Elmendorf & Louise Sheiner, 2000. "Should America save for its old age? Population aging, national saving, and fiscal policy," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-03, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Stiller, Silvia, 2000. "Demographic Change and Consumption -- A Long-term Simulation Analysis," Discussion Paper Series 26252, Hamburg Institute of International Economics.
    15. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/2091 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Jacques Le Cacheux & Vincent Touzé, 2002. "Les modèles d'équilibre général calculable à générations imbriquées. Enjeux, méthodes et résultats," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 80(1), pages 87-113.
    17. Vaittinen, Risto & Vanne, Reijo, 2020. "Finland’s slow recovery from the financial crisis: A demographic explanation," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    18. Axel Boersch-Supan & Alexander Ludwig & Joachim Winter, 2001. "Aging and International Capital Flows," NBER Working Papers 8553, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Li, Hongbin & Zhang, Jie & Zhang, Junsen, 2007. "Effects of longevity and dependency rates on saving and growth: Evidence from a panel of cross countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 138-154, September.
    20. Heinrich Hock & David Weil, 2012. "On the dynamics of the age structure, dependency, and consumption," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 1019-1043, July.
    21. Fehr, Hans & Jokisch, Sabine & Kotlikoff, Laurence J., 2008. "Fertility, mortality and the developed world's demographic transition," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 455-473.
    22. Nick Parr & Ross Guest, 2014. "A method for socially evaluating the effects of long-run demographic paths on living standards," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 31(11), pages 275-318.
    23. Stiller, Silvia, 2000. "Demographic change and consumption: A long-term simulation analysis," HWWA Discussion Papers 99, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ausecr:v:35:y:2002:i:1:p:29-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.