How to Benefit from the Demographic Constraint ?

The effects of demography are fairly easy to anticipate. We therefore have quite a clear and accurate idea of the populations that will be of a working age or retired over the next twenty years, and thus what our wealth creation capacities will be. Demographic uncertainty mainly lies in life expectancy and birth rates, which hardly affect these capacities, and in migratory movements – the potential of which may be considerable.

How do we force our societies to anticipate demographic constraints and start managing the consequences today? The strategies applied to pre-empt these constraints, such as extending working life, setting aside retirement/dependency savings or migration, cannot be improvised, both for human and technical reasons. This session will look for answers to these questions, answers that will evidently differ depending on the economies concerned and the flows that occur between them. We will also discuss demographic rupture scenarios, their causes, their probability and the potential consequences.