India may face economic trouble as fertility levels drop
The HinduIndia’s policymakers have long flaunted the massive economic benefits that the country will reap from its huge youth population. An ageing population, many economists believe, could turn out to mean serious economic trouble unless India manages to grow its economy at a rapid pace in the coming decades. As more elderly people come to depend on a shrinking working-age population, developing countries like India will face a far bigger challenge in the coming decades than did developed countries in their past. Most of the developed world had much higher per capita income levels when their populations began to age, which made it easier for them to handle the economic pressures caused by an ageing population. In a 2017 paper published in the American Economic Review, economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo analysed the economic performance of countries and noted that there is no strict negative relationship between an ageing population and per capita income levels.