Abstract “Demographic dividend” theory comes from empirical research, with lack of an intuitive theoretical framework. This paper introduces the variable of population age structure into the Ramsey model to build the theoretical framework to analyze the impact on economic growth and social welfare. Then an empirical study has been done using 1965-2009 panel data from 143 countries. It can be concluded that, the increase of dependency ratio will reduce economic growth rate, on the contrary, it will increase economic growth rate; countries with a low dependency ratio have a high social welfare; if the proportion below 14 years increases by 1 percentage, the growth rate of GDP per capita will decrease by 1.5 percentage; if the proportion above 65 years increases by 1 percentage, the growth rate of GDP per capita will decrease by 2.8 percentage, the latter is 2 times of the former.
WANG Yu-Feng,WANG Yo-Sen. Population Age Structure, Economic Growth and Social Welfare—— A Theory Analyzing Framework for Demographic Dividend. Economic Survey, 2014, 31(3): 0127.
2014, Vol. 31 
