Why Demographics is a Key to the Innovation Race
Why Demographics is a Key to the Innovation Race
As the population ages, which nation will rise to lead innovation in the future? Demographics of Innovation takes a deep, investigative look at the link between economic growth, innovation, vitality and entrepreneurship in an aging population, and provides smart strategy for the future.
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The ever-aging population is a ticking time bomb that has the potential to stifle innovation and hamper economic growth. In recent decades—as a result of increased urbanization, industrialization, and resulting affluence—people are having fewer children. This new demographic scenario has created a set of troubling social problems, such as labor shortages and a decline of economic dynamism. In The Demographics of Innovation, James Liang eschews the traditional thinking that highlights the financial burden of the demographic shift and decries the global population collapse. Liang argues that many negative aspects of the impact of an aging population will be mild and manageable, maintaining that the most fundamental and irreparable problem of aging is the weakening of entrepreneurship and innovation.
It's a fact that inventors and scientists are most productive in their 30s, and that most entrepreneurs start their firms at this age. As Liang explains, in an aging society, the opportunities for promotion are hindered by those who fall in an older demographic. In an aging society, young workers occupy relatively lower-level positions in organizations, and thus have lower social and political power, fewer skills, and more limited access to financial resources. Consequently, entrepreneurship vitality suffers. Data from Japan and other developed countries reveal that entrepreneurial activity is much lower in countries with an aging population.
Liang argues that in order to maintain a young and growing, innovative workforce, a country needs to implement certain public policies: pro-fertility policy, an education policy, and an open immigration policy. Demographic expert James Liang explores which nations are best poised to build an innovative economy that will support sustainable economic growth into the future and discusses the prospect of future economic competition among the major economic powers of Japan, China, the United States, Europe, and India.
The Demographics of Innovation offers a compelling argument for making the choices that are critical for winning the race of innovation.
