Which countries show favour towards negative, zero or positive population growth?

ABSTRACT

This article develops an overlapping generations model with eldercare by migrants and children in the context of the ageing problem and examines what conditions cause people to prefer a negative, zero or positive population growth rate. We find that a wage ratio of around 0.7 for eldercare by migrants can explain well the coexistence of negative, zero and positive population growth rates in the European Union. A country that does not need eldercare and has an optimistic view of the future will have a positive population growth rate. Other countries will have zero or negative population growth rates.

KEYWORDS:

• OLG
• theoretical framework
• eldercare
• migration
• population growth

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• J11
• I11
• J61
• O41

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology of Japan [Grant-in-Aid 26380403].