https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2019/sp-so-2019-10-04.html  6/13  10/4/2019  Lumps, Bumps and Waves | Speeches | RBA  Graph 4  It is hard to disentangle the cyclical from the trend. Still, many observers focused on the idea that, with a higher proportion of the workforce in older age groups that have lower average participation, total participation would fall.
But (except in the United States) the opposite happened, because the underlying drivers of the wave – lower fertility and longer healthy lifespans – necessarily also created the conditions for higher participation in some groups in the population. Waves from ideas Some waves of change are initially spurred by something outside the economic system but their effects are heavily mediated by subsequent business decisions.