Vom Youth Bulge direkt in die Rentenkrise
Ein interessanter Artikel von Patrick Clawson im MERIA Journal über die absehbare demografische Enticklung im Nahen Osten und Nordafrika und ihre möglichen Folgen:
The labor market situation in the Middle East will likely undergo a dramatic change by mid-century when the working age population will largely stop growing. In six of the region’s 20 countries, the population aged 15-60 will actually shrink between 2040 and 2050–in Iran, it will shrink nine percent in that decade. By that decade, the working age population will only be increasing in the countries in which the demographic transition started late: Sudan, Iraq, and especially the Palestinian territories and Yemen. At just the same time that the working age population ceases to grow much, the numbers of elderly will begin to soar, as discussed earlier.
Als weiteres Problem sieht er das Missverhältnis zwischen dem steigenden Bildungsstand der Frauen, und den Hindernissen, daraus wirtschaftliches Kapital zu schlagen:
–––In the oil-rich states–including those with strict Islamic rules, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran–women now make up half or more of the undergraduate university students. Indeed, the increasing dominance of universities by women is becoming a matter of social concern; it appears that young men have better work opportunities and so do not stay in school as long. Kuwait University has introduced a formal affirmative action program to attract more male students.
Women’s increased skills, combined with the urbanization that the Middle East has been experiencing, would be expected to lead to more women working outside the home.[9] However, to date, women’s labor force participation has lagged behind trends in much of the rest of the world. In East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, women’s labor force participation has for decades been at 60 percent or more. By contrast, the proportion of working-age women in the labor force grew only modestly in the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region from 22 percent in 1960 to 26 percent in 1990. The rate rose to 32 percent in 2000, with particularly steep increases in the Gulf monarchies.