Cities of Workers, Children or Seniors? Age Structure and Economic Growth in a Global Cross-Section of Cities

Remi Jedwab, Daniel Pereira and Mark Roberts
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Daniel Pereira: George Washington University

Working Papers from The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy

Abstract: A large literature documents the positive influence of a city’s skill structure on its rate of economic growth. By contrast, the effect of a city’s age structure on its economic growth has been a hitherto largely neglected area of research. We hypothesize that cities with more working-age adults are likely to grow faster than cities with more children or seniors and set-out the potential channels through which such differential growth may occur. Using data from a variety of historical and contemporary sources, we show that there exists marked variation in the age structure of the world’s largest cities, both across cities and over time. We then study how age structure affects economic growth for a global cross-section of mega-cities. Using various identification strategies, we find that mega-cities with higher dependency ratios - i.e. with more children and/or seniors per working-age adult - grow significantly slower. Such effects are particularly pronounced for cities with high shares of children. This result appears to be mainly driven by the direct negative effects of a higher dependency ratio on the size of the working-age population and the indirect effects on work hours and productivity for working age adults within a city.

Keywords: Urbanization; Cities; Age Structure; Dependency Ratios; Children; Ageing; Demographic Cycles; Agglomeration Effects; Human Capital; Growth; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J11 J13 J14 N30 O11 R10 R11 R19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-dem, nep-geo, nep-gro, nep-lab and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Cities of Workers, Children, or Seniors? Age Structure and Economic Growth in a Global Cross-Section of Cities (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gwi:wpaper:2019-13

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