BIS Review 55/2004  9  The total dependency ratio is a rough measure of potential social support needs.3 The expected decline is due to the fact that young-age dependency ratio of all these countries is likely to decrease very rapidly due to sharp decline in total fertility rate during this period.
Third, the ECB has continued its policy of providing a higher share of liquidity on a longerterm basis by renewing our supplementary three-month longer-term refinancing operations. Moreover, in April 2008 the Eurosystem conducted a supplementary longer-term refinancing operation with a six-month maturity and announced another one for July 2008.