Demographic change, human capital, and economic growth in Korea

Jong-Suk Han and Jong-Wha Lee

CAMA Working Papers from Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University

Abstract: In this study, we construct a measure of human capital using micro datasets on labor composition of age, gender, education, and wage rate and analyze its role in economic growth for the Korean economy. Over the past three decades, human capital has grown steadily at about 1% per year, contrasting to a continuously declining trend of total work-hours. This growth has been driven by the rise of better-educated baby boom cohorts. A growth accounting exercise shows that human capital contributes significantly to economic growth; it accounted for 0.5% points of annual GDP growth over the period. Human capital is projected to remain a major growth factor over the next two decades as the increase in educational attainment continues. Increased employment rate of elderly or female workers reduces the aggregate human capital growth while increasing the available labor. Polices to improve human capital of less-productivity workers will help to support aggregate human capital and economic growth.

Keywords: Aging; Demographic change; Education; Human capital; Growth; Training (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 J24 O47 O53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2019-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-gro and nep-lma
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Related works:
Journal Article: Demographic change, human capital, and economic growth in Korea (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:een:camaaa:2019-39

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