From the demographic dividend to population ageing: world trends in the system-wide transition

In the 21st century, the increasing intensity of quantitative and qualitative demographic changes is becoming one of the most important factors that determine the direction of socio-economic development. Global downward trends in the birth and death rates have created conditions for the demographic system to shift to a new qualitative state. Humanity is at the crossroads of a transition between two phenomena it has not witnessed before: demographic “window” and population ageing. Under the circumstances, the research on the factors and implications of this system-wide transition is becoming increasingly important, because obtaining relevant information about the actual and forecast states of the demographic system is one of the key tasks of strategic planning for sustainable development. In this regard, the goal of the present research is to study the patterns, characteristics and driving forces of transition of the world population from the stage of realization of the demographic dividend to the stage of ageing. In our research we use fundamental works of foreign and domestic scientists and United Nations and World Bank statistics. In the first part of the article we consider approaches to the term “demographic dividend” and its conceptual substantiation, drivers of its formation and options to implement the demographic window. The second part of the paper presents the results of testing the methodology for determining the degree of implementation of the demographic dividend and the transformation of the age structure towards its ageing. We conclude that in the countries that are implementing the catching-up development model (from both the economic and demographic points of view; the “yellow group”) the intensity and depth of the implementation of the demographic dividend is significantly higher than in the countries that have already completed it (mainly developed countries - the “red group”). At the same time we argue that the width of the demographic window of opportunity is directly proportional to the scale of potential impact of population ageing, which inevitably follows the stage of the dividend implementation.