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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

United States Has Better Demographic Picture than Europe

Commentary responding to those analysts and policymakers taht obsessing over what happens when the baby boom becomes the "geezer glut.":
Two key ingredients of growth are increases in the labor force and productivity. If countries can't maintain the size of their labor forces -- say, by persuading older workers to retire later, getting stay-at-home wives to find jobs, or taking in more immigrants -- they must boost productivity to maintain current growth levels. That will be a particular challenge in Europe, where productivity growth has averaged just 1.3% since 1995.
The United States is considered to be in relatively healthy shape despite the hand-wringing over Social Security and Medicare. It has a slightly higher fertility rate and an annual intake of 900,000 legal immigrants, sop that its median age will rise just three years, to 39, over the next quarter-century, before the aging of America really starts to accelerate.

Source: " Global Ageing" theMatureMarket.com (February 22, 2005)

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