Demographic Change and Public Policies: Perspectives from Global North and Global South

Demographic change arising from rapid fertility decline, increasing longevity, speedy urbanisation, and growing mobility and migration has been a remarkable feature of the twenty-first century. The demographic change is conceptualised as processes and stages of demographic transition. In the course of demographic transition, the ageing of the population is the most glaring, laden with opportunities and challenges of the demographic dividend or demographic loss, depending upon the stage of transition. Researchers have argued that it is not the size and growth but the age-composition and the rural and urban composition of the population, inter alia, that are closely associated with economic development. Changes in the age composition of the population result in a demographic dividend when the ratio of the working population (15-59) rises in a population or a demographic loss when the ratio declines. However, every nation passes through a demographic window of opportunity in its demographic history. As the demographic transition has been uneven spatially, it is thus very important to understand demographic change in the global north as well as the global south through the lens of demographic opportunities and challenges. The harvesting of demographic dividend or mitigating demographic loss depends not only on the progress of human development and capabilities, but it is also crucially linked to migration and development policies. In this process, public policy plays a decisive role, but is either silent or negatively loaded against demographic change. This session aims to deliberate on the central role of demographic change in formulating public policies.