The age distribution of a population shows the number
of people spread over the different age groups.
Dependent age group contains the people below the
official school leaving age and the people above the retirement age (Below15
and 64 years in The Maldives)..
The working age group consists of people above the
school leaving age and people below retirement age (i.e. 15 and 64 years in The
Maldives).
The following are the effect of lowering the school
leaving age.
There would be an increase the size of the labour
force. In the short run it would
increase output, and it may reduce inflation. It may also lead to the reduction of government spending on education which would help
to increase spending on health care. In general, younger workers are paid less
wages, so it would reduce costs of production.
On the other hand it would reduce the quality of the
labour force and hence reduce the quality of products and productivity of
labour. It may also cause a reduction in
the output in the long run. These will discourage MNCs from setting up in the
country. As a result the government tax
revenue may also decrease in the long run. Altogether it will reduce the
country’s international competitiveness. Finally it may increase unemployment
in older workers.
The working age group consists of the number of people
with in the working age, and working population consists only the number of
people actually working. This means the number of unemployed will be deducted
from the number of people in the working age group for calculating the working
population. This is the difference between working population and working age group.
Dependency ratio is the number of dependents per each
hundred number of workers. For example a
country’s population consists of 30 million dependents and 50 million workers,
then
Dependency ratio =
Number dependents X 100
Number
of workers
= 30
X 100 = 60
50 =====
Ageing population refers to an
increase in the average age of the population.
When the economy develops, the birth rate as well as death rate
increases. This will cause an increase
in the average age of population.
Sex Ratio is the proportion of
males to females in a given population, usually expressed as the number of
males per 100 females.
There are some economic effects of geographical
distribution of population. The
excessive concentration of population will cause more congestion and pollution.
The people in that area may not get sufficient employment opportunity at that
place because of excess supply of labour.
At the same time, at the places where the density of population is less,
there will be shortage of supply of labour.
Occupational
distribution of population refers to the distribution of population on the
basis of their occupation. It is seen
that people at coastal and river banks are occupationally fisherman or jobs
related to water transport and so on. According to the structural changes in
the economy (technology), there will be some effects and possible changes in
Occupational distribution of population.
The major Economic effect of age structure is that,
when dependents increase it will cause excess burden on the working
population. This will in turn reduce the
per capita income (income per head).
When income per head decreases, the level of consumption will be
decreasing, this means - a reduction in the standard of living.
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