While it is not straightforward to identify clear links between ageing and technological progress, the literature has explored how demographic developments could affect capital intensity. The degree of capital intensity in the economy depends on the relative abundance of the different productive factors: the capital stock and the labour force.
All other things being equal, ageing would presumably generate a fall in the rate of growth of the labour force, if not a contraction in its size. 18 The production process would therefore become more capitalintensive and the relative productivity of new capital purchases would be lower.