The answer is “it depends”. A gradual decline and slow change to the age profile of a country is likely to be manageable even for medium income economies. It doesn’t strain social welfare systems as much and it gives society and the government time to adjust policies, improve immigration, increase fertility rates etc.
Now for a much wealthier and more productive economy, broadly speaking, society produces enough so that the government (through taxation for example) can build up programs to support more elderly. In that case, even a fairly steep decline in population might be manageable.
The problem with rapid population decline in normal times (no super pandemic or war etc) is that the decline is primarily caused by reduced total fertility. This means fewer and fewer young people entering productive society after a few decades.
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