Is It Demographic Dividend or Trap for India and China?

LI Xin 1, Christer Ljungwall2 and XU Dianqing3

1National School of Development, China Center for Economic Research, Peking University 2Stockholm School of Economics, China Economic Research Center

3University of Western Ontario

 
Abstract:

The relation between economic growth and population growth is a widely debated topic in economics. The discussion circles around three main views about demography; (i) Population Neutralism, (ii) Demographic Dividends, and (iii) Demographic Traps. This paper provides a quantitative definition of the demographic trap based on the theoretical demographic distribution curve. We then compare the results of the world’s two most populous countries, China and India. The results show that India may fall into a demographic trap while China will not and, hence these two countries exhibit two distinctly opposite demographic characteristics. Extending the results to include examination of a set of rich and poor countries, we conclude that there is no evidence of a demographic trap in the U.S. and Canada, while it is highly possible that Algeria and Angola will get caught in one.

Key Words:

Demographic dividends, Demographic traps, Lewis- curve, Economic development

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