Swammerdami
Squadron Leader
This is a common sentiment, but I think it is very misleading. Depending on how we define "keep the economy going", one can argue almost the opposite!
For ease of analysis let's set aside age-demographic changes, i.e. the growing number of retirees older than working age. (Anyway this is partly offset by the decrease in the portion of children younger than working age.)
It IS true that growth in asset prices, e.g. stock prices, may benefit from population growth. But what is good for corporations and billionaires is not necessarily what is best for ordinary people. The AVERAGE (arithmetic mean) savings for Americans approaching retirement age is rather high; and the booming stock market gives great financial security to millions of Americans. BUT focusing on the welfare of successful Americans misses the big picture. Almost half of Americans have no retirement savings at all; and this is of course much worse in most other countries. I wonder if using high stock prices as a proxy for prosperity is, to some extent, a propaganda ploy to distract Americans from their ever-shrinking "share of the pie."
Malthusian Population Dynamics: Theory and Evidence is an interesting 46-page paper I'm adding to my (already over-long) reading list; I mention it just as a source for the graph below. As seen in the graph, the typical worker in re-industrial England did NOT benefit from rising population: Just the opposite was the case. If instead you examine more recent data from the USA, you see a HUGE rise in GDP accompanied by record LOW population increases. This implies strong rises in GDP per capita, along with strong rises in housing prices and stock prices, BUT these gains have NOT been shared with the lowest-paid workers. It is no surprise that European countries with a better safety net show higher contentment and better mental health than the USA.
