Ric Saludo’s CenSEI colleague Pia Rufino contributed this column
As the reproductive health debate shifts to the High Court and the public arena, The CenSEI Report article on the Global Trends 2030 study, offers an important message: nations with growing young populations stand to gain in decades ahead,

while those that had limited births face economic contraints.

By 2030, most countries will see a still-significant but shrinking number of youthful societies owing to declining fertility and maturing populations, the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) says in its predictive analysis Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds. The tally of countries with youthful populations (median age: 25 years or less) is projected to fall from 80 to about 50 by 2030 as fertility declines.

Based on the report, “aging countries face an uphill battle in maintaining their living standards while more youthful ones have the potential, owing to the ‘demographic dividend,’ to gain an economic boost if they can put the extra numbers of youth to work.” That’s a giant if, of course: If nations don’t harness the young, this potential resource becomes a burden—or a menace.

A 2001 study by the US National Bureau of Economic Research says the so-called demographic dividend happens when the country has an increasing supply of young workers aged 15 to 64. “If supported by the right policies in public health, education, and finance, the dividend increases productivity,” the study concluded.

A bigger and younger labor pool will drive economic growth in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. According to the UN report World Population to 2030, pages 79 to 81, China entered the “demographic window of opportunity” in 1990, coinciding with its two decades of double-digit annual growth. Thailand began this phase in 1995, followed by Vietnam in 2005, Malaysia in 2010, and the Philippines in 2015.

A Bank of America report agrees: “As factories, jobs, and investment flow south to tap younger and cheaper labor, economic growth in the Asean is poised to accelerate, propelling the area’s currencies and fueling consumer and property booms.”

Asia and the Pacific house over half of the world’s young people—some 650 million between the ages of 10 and 24, rising above 700 million, by the UN Environment Program’s projection. In some parts of the region, young people make up nearly 20 percent of the population.

Frederic Neumann, a senior economist at HSBC in Hong Kong, says the Philippines’ working-age population—those between ages 15 to 64—will continue to increase, unlike in other Asian countries with older populations. He told The New York Times: “The Philippines stands out as the youngest population. As other countries see their labor costs go up, the Philippines will remain competitive due to the sheer abundance of workers joining the labor force.”

Other countries won’t be so well-situated. The increasing life expectancy and declining birth rates that lead to the greying of the population points to an unprecedented world shortage of younger workers, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers. A shortage of skilled workers is also among “Five Trends That Are Dramatically Changing Work and the Workplace,” (2011) that office furnishings supplier Knoll foresees in the years ahead.

The problem: there are fewer younger people to match the youth bulge of the Baby Boom between the end of World War II in 1945 until the mid-1960s, some years after contraceptive pills were approved for use in the US. As this generation enters the usual retirement age of 60 or so, maturing countries will have a smaller proportion of their population working to support its seniors and funding their pension benefits.

But countries with abundant youth must get them productive work. As a World Bank blog noted, youth employment is a key to country’s success in turning the youth bulge into a demographic dividend. Absent a sufficient employment and acceptable income, the youth bulge will spur frustrations among youth, which is likely to cause social and political instability.

In 2011, 74.8 million youth aged 15 to 24 were unemployed, an increase of over four million since 2007, based on figures from the International Labor Organization’s Global Employment Trends 2012. The ILO reports: “Globally, young people are nearly three times as likely as adults to be unemployed. Moreover, an estimated 6.4 million young people have given up hope of finding a job and have dropped out of the labor market altogether. Even those young people who are employed are increasingly likely to find themselves in part-time employment and often on temporary contracts.”

In Southeast Asia, youth unemployment continues to remain a major challenge, with unemployment rate of 13.4 percent in 2011—five times higher than that for adults, according to the ILO. The big reason for high youth unemployment: lack of education and training to keep pace with rapid economic transformation and hence changing work skill needs.

What’s worse, harnessing the youth isn’t given much priority. “The world’s 1.2 billion adolescents and young adults are probably the most neglected—by policy analysts, business thinkers, and academic researchers—of all the age groups,” wrote Harvard economics and demography professor David Bloom in the International Monetary Fund’s Finance and Development journal last March.

Bloom urges the following measures to better tap the youth bulge: better and more program for education, youth service, financial and health literacy, entrepreneurship; infrastructure development; and forums and initiatives to address youth concerns.

From The CenSEI Report on world demographic trends, one of six articles on Global Trends 2030. For the full report with online research, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .