What Could Offset Global Ageing? India/Africa, Participation and Automation

Abstract

Ageing economies can try to offset demography at home or abroad. At home, participation of the elderly in the workforce has already increased quite sharply, and will increase yet further, but there are physical, social and political limits to this process. Inward migration is equally politically fraught, and hence unlikely to be a panacea too. Given the prospective decline in the workforce in the West, and the need for more carers for the dependent old, automation will be welcome, even necessary, not the bug-bear that is often depicted. Abroad, India and Africa will have a burgeoning labour force for decades to come. However, Goodhart and Pradhan believe there are significant impediments to their dramatic growth, more so in Africa than India. Economic success in those economies will be adequate for their own progress, but not enough to shoulder the burden of an ageing world.