The Real Dependency Ratio
Sep. 13th, 2008 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vit_rMost economists will tell you that the real problem with Social Security is demography. ... The fraction of people over 65 will keep rising, implying a growing dependency ratio.
The problem is that this is only the ratio of retirees to working-age people. But wouldn't a better measure of dependency just be the ratio of workers to people? When you think about it this way, the aging of the population is balanced by (a) the fall in the fraction of children, and (b) the rise in female labor force participation.
Econlog, The Real Dependency Ratio, by Bryan Caplan
