State of World Population 2012 - UNFPA Haiti

gender equality is much stronger and moredirect at the household level than the microeconomiclevel or the macroeconomic level.But the individual and household impactsof family planning services—lower fertility,improved health, decreased mortality, greaterinvestment in human capital, greater participationin the labour force and increasedincome and savings—also scale up at the moreaggregate levels of communities and countries.These macro-level effects are sometimes difficultto identify because these variables areinterrelated and are influenced by an enormousnumber of additional variables such asthe institutional environment, the influence ofpolicy, wars and other major social, economicand political events. Though conclusive evidenceof the magnitude of the relationshipsdoes not yet exist, some areas of consensushave emerged.One such area of consensus among economists,demographers and policymakers isrecognition of the role of population age structuresin economic development. Declines infertility initially reduce the share of a country’spopulation that is young. For some time, theinitial decline in the youth population that isdependent others for their basic needs is notoffset by increases in the share of the populationthat is older and dependent on others. Atthis point in the demographic transition, therelative size of a country’s working-age populationincreases. This one-time increase in theproportion of the working-age population thatcoincides with a one-time decrease in “dependencyratios” creates favorable conditionsfor economic development and is called the“demographic dividend.”At the macroeconomic level, the demographictransition reduces a number of challengesin countries that cannot easily keep up withinvesting in health and education of a large andrapidly growing youth population, and managingan essentially unlimited supply of labour.The demographic dividend also provides countrieswith opportunities to increase labour forceparticipation, income, saving, investment, andsocial change, if policies are in place to investin the human capital of this young group (viahigher per-capita spending on health andeducation, greater investment in physicalinfrastructure and institutional development,and support for civic participation, amongother things).“After fertility rates steadily decline over the course of20 or 30 years, the number of income-generating adultsgrows relative to the number people who depend on themfor support, thus creating more favourable conditions foreconomic growth and sustainable development.”Demographic dividends have been observedin East and Southeast Asia, Latin America, theMiddle East and North Africa, and the PacificIslands (Lee et al., 2010; Lee, 2003; Lee et al.,2001; Mason and Lee, 2004; Lee and Mason,2006; Bloom et al., 2009; Schultz, 2009). Thedividend began in East Asia in the 1970s, inSouth Asia in the 1980s and in sub-SaharanAfrica in the new millennium.Macro-level impact of family planning onsavings, investment and growthDependency ratios and the demographicdividend can affect economies and societies innumerous ways. In early stages of the demographictransition—when the share of thepopulation that is young starts to grow—countriesmay be required to spend more on schools,health clinics, housing, and other infrastructureTHE STATE OF WORLD POPULATION 201283