These medical advances and the baby boom after the war, together with longer life expectancy, are true blessings for economic growth, bringing what are often called population dividends, with many young workers producing and few old people being supported. However, at some point in time, the trend had to be reversed.
The significant point for us here is that the bubble we have experienced has coincided closely with the turning point in these demographic dynamics. Population ageing: inverse dependency ratio Let me show you some telling figures on the inverse dependency ratio, which indicates how many people of working age it takes to provide for one dependent person.