The Shifting Demographics and Lifelong Learning. Conference Paper

This paper was presented at the International Symposium on Lifelong Learning for Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development: Developing a Research Agenda for the Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong, 12-13 January 2011. Tom Karmel suggests that there are four implications of an ageing population: the need to improve labour force participation and productivity; the ageing population will provide a "demographic dividend" because there will be fewer young people to school; increasing life expectancy changes the arithmetic of the return to investments in human capital and makes investment in the middle-aged more attractive; and ageing populations in developed countries provide an opportunity for developing countries through the export of labour services. (Contains 4 tables, 6 figures and 2 footnotes.)