Christopher Kent: Ageing and Australia's economic outlook
Address by Mr Christopher Kent, Assistant Governor (Economic) of the Reserve Bank of
Australia, to the Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) National Congress, Adelaide,
20 October 2014.
* * *
I thank Tim Atkin, Laura Berger-Thomson, David Jacobs, Sharon Lai and Melissa Watson for help in preparing
these remarks.1
Near-term outlook
I'd like to thank Leading Age Services Australia for the opportunity to be here today. I want to
focus on some implications of population ageing for the longer-term outlook.
Before that, I'll make two remarks about the near-term outlook. First, with inflation expected
to remain consistent with the 2-3 per cent medium-term target, monetary policy is currently
configured to support growth in demand. Low interest rates temporarily raise the disposable
incomes of those with debt, but lower incomes for those reliant on interest-bearing assets.
This is stimulatory nonetheless, in part because the household sector is a net debtor overall.
Low interest rates also encourage expenditure to be brought forward, provide an incentive for
savers to shift into riskier, higher-return assets, and push up asset prices, to the benefit of
those that own housing and equities.
A second point is that while monetary policy tends to focus on the outlook for the next few
years - which is dominated by business cycle considerations - it is important for the Bank to
account for longer-term structural changes. For example, labour force participation has
declined noticeably over recent years. Much of this owes to the usual response of
discouraged workers, both young and old, to subdued labour market conditions.2 This
discouraged worker effect is likely to unwind as conditions improve. But some of the decline
also reflects the increasing effect of ageing on labour force participation.
This illustrates the point that to understand the near-term outlook better, we need to
distinguish between shorter-term business cycle influences and longer-term structural forces.
An increasingly important longer-term force is the ageing of the population, which is the focus
of the rest of my presentation.
Population ageing - its nature
Population ageing is driven by three different forces. The first is the baby boom that followed
the Second World War. The second is the drop in fertility rates thereafter. Combined, these
two changes led to a "bulge" in the age distribution of the population (Graph 1). The early
part of this cohort began to retire from around the turn of the century and the baby boom is
increasingly putting downward pressure on the share of the population that is of (traditional)
working age.3
Graph 1
The third force driving population ageing is rising longevity. Australians born today can
expect to live nearly 25 years longer than those born a hundred years ago. The increase in
life expectancy has occurred throughout this period and appears to be ongoing.
Population ageing - some challenges
Conversations about ageing often focus on the challenges it poses. But it also provides us
with numerous opportunities. Let's first consider some of the challenges and assume for the
moment that behaviours don't respond to population ageing.4
(Relatively) fewer workers
If people were to retire at about the same age as in the past, population ageing would drive
further falls in labour force participation rates over coming years.
The resulting decline in the supply of labour (relative to the total population) would tend to put
upward pressure on wages (at least pre-tax wages) and reduce the returns to capital.5
The pressures on the labour supply will be felt more acutely by industries that rely more
heavily on labour. Most notably, this includes services industries, such as aged care and
health care (Graph 2). There is, however, likely to be scope for labour to be reallocated
across services industries. In particular, an older population will require relatively fewer
workers to care for and educate children.
Graph 2
More demand for services
At the same time as labour will tend to be in shorter supply, larger shares of the population
will need a degree of assistance and care. Indeed, demand can be expected to shift towards
services (away from goods) given that services constitute a larger share of total consumption
for older people than for the rest of the population (Graph 3).6 Much of this reflects spending
on health care. This extra demand for services will be in addition to that associated with
rising wealth. People tend to spend an increasing share of their rising incomes on services in
part because there are ultimately limits to the consumption of food, wearing of clothes and
use of other goods.
Graph 3
So, we can expect that ageing will lead to extra demand for services at the same time that it
weighs on the supply of services (via declining labour force participation). More demand and
less supply will push up the prices of services, relative to the prices of goods. This rise in the
relative price of services has long been apparent for other reasons. One reason for this is
that productivity growth has tended to be greater for goods than for services. That is, we've
got better at producing more goods for a given level of inputs, more so than has been the
case for services. Another reason is that the global integration of much of Asia over recent
decades has brought large numbers of workers into the production of traded goods,
increasing their supply and therefore pushing down the relative prices of goods.
It is important for stronger wage growth, and an increase in the relative prices of services to
occur. Such signals will encourage higher labour force participation than would otherwise be
the case and bring forth the additional supply of services that we will want and need.
Pressures on the public purse
Population ageing will place the public purse under a degree of pressure in a number of
ways. Public revenues will face downward pressure given the declining share of the
population paying income taxes.7 Public expenditure will tend to rise given the demands on
public pensions and the fact that many of the types of services that older people require are
provided by the public sector directly.
Insufficient savings to fund retirement?
We are becoming wealthier and, through compulsory superannuation and other means of
saving, we have gradually been building up private savings to fund retirement. But if we retire
at much the same age as earlier generations had been used to, with longer lifespans on
average we'll have to fund quite lengthy periods of retirement. Moreover, this will be an
environment where there will already be considerable pressure on the public purse, for the
reasons I have just noted.
Insufficient risk-taking and innovation?
One last challenge I want to raise relates to productivity growth. There is evidence that older
people tend to be less willing to take on risks, including those associated with new business
ventures, developing new products and services, and pursuing innovation more generally
(Graph 4).8 For this reason, it is possible that ageing could weigh on productivity growth, and
hence on our incomes and economic wellbeing.9
Graph 4
Population ageing - opportunities to meet the challenges
Focusing only on the challenges would leave us with a rather gloomy picture of ageing.
Fortunately, individuals and economies tend to be responsive to these sorts of challenges.
Allowing relative prices to change and enabling individuals and businesses to alter their
behaviours in response to those price signals is a critical part of the adjustment process.
Applying a little foresight will also be helpful. And the key point I would like to emphasise is
that rising longevity provides us with a number of opportunities to meet these challenges.
Longer working lives
Not only are we living longer, but life spans are also generally healthier than in the past.10
Among other things, this provides the option of working productively later into life. Let me be
clear though, extra years of work need not imply less years in retirement. (I'll come back to
this point in a minute).
Also, many (though by no means all) jobs are less taxing on peoples' bodies than in the past.
This makes it easier to spend extra years of life in the work force, which is already happening
to some extent. Many types of workers have been retiring a little bit later in life over recent
years and participation rates among older people have been rising over a long period of time
12
(Table 1 and Graph 5).11, Not surprisingly though, this change is not generally evident for
those with very taxing jobs, such as labourers who tend to retire several years earlier than
other workers. Greater opportunities for part-time work have helped to contribute to rising
participation rates among older people. Changing social norms more generally - particularly
for women - have also made a contribution to rising labour force participation.
10
For a discussion of this point see Productivity Commission (2013), Kulish M, C Kent and K Smith (2010),
"Aging, Retirement, and Savings: A General Equilibrium Analysis", B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, vol. 10,
no. 1, and the references therein.
11
The recent cyclical weakness in the demand for labour seems to have put paid to the trend rise in participation
rates among older members of the population seen over recent decades. But the response to rising longevity
(and other forces) might reassert itself when demand for labour strengthens. See Kent (2014).
12
There is a possibility that the changes over time shown in Table 1 were driven in part by a temporary response
to the decline in wealth associated with the global financial crisis. That is, people who might have otherwise
retired decided to stay on at work, and for others to re-enter the workforce, to make up for declines to wealth
following declines in housing and equity prices following the financial crisis. However, patterns across different
workers over the intervening years (including data for 2008 and 2010, not shown), combined with the
longerterm rise in participation of older ages in Graph 5 suggests that factors other than just the financial crisis have
been responsible for later retirement.
Graph 5
A rise in wages - which I have suggested is in prospect over the longer term - would provide
an incentive for people to enter and remain in the workforce. Incentives related to the
provision of public pensions and the treatment of superannuation will also have a significant
bearing on the labour force participation of older people.
Higher savings
It's possible that we will choose to use longer lifespans in such a way that, on average, we'll
work some extra years and spend more years in retirement. It's possible that we'll increase
the share of our lives in retirement. Indeed, that would make sense because as we become
wealthier over time, we can enjoy the better things in life, including more leisure. In any case,
we'll probably want and need more savings to fund additional years spent in retirement.13
One way to do this is to save more during each year that we work. The power of
compounding returns means that this strategy would be particularly effective if we do so
earlier on in our working lives. Working for longer is another option. Individuals can add to
their own savings during extra years of work, and delay the time at which they start to
drawdown private savings. Also, this allows them to make further contributions to public
revenue (via income taxes) and delays any need they may have to draw on the public purse.
If we manage to build up savings in preparation for ageing - as I've suggested we should -
ultimately this can be used to fund investment. That is, more savings will support a rise in the
stock of an economy's productive capital. Even if that extra capital is not put to work
providing additional services, it can still be used productively in more capital intensive
industries. This would free up some labour to work in the services sector.14
Education
Longer life spans provide opportunities and incentives to gain more education or learn a
trade, and to do so later into life. This result is relatively straight forward. Education and
training, particularly beyond high school, are costly for the individual, in part because of the
opportunity cost of foregone income. A longer working life raises the life-time returns to
advanced education and training, thereby providing the incentive to do more of it.
Although other factors may be at work here, there is evidence that more people have been
obtaining qualifications beyond high school over the past couple of decades (Table 2).15
Raising our human capital should help to make our economy more productive.
Risk taking
As I have already discussed, a rise in the share of older people might reduce the extent of
risk-taking and innovative behaviour in an economy. But that is not where this story ends. It
is important to recognise that a decline in the share of people taking risks would raise the
return to risk taking. A response of others to this incentive would help, in part, to offset the
initial impetus to reduced risk-taking flowing from population ageing.
It is also possible that longer life spans may make people more willing to take on risks at any
given age. Why? Take the example of someone considering a new business venture. They
might be more willing to do so knowing that they would have more productive years to take
advantage of a successful business. Moreover, in the event of failure, they still have many
productive years ahead to generate a decent income doing something else.16 They could use
those years to pursue a safer option to generate a living, or even take on a different risky
venture. In short, "40 may be the new 30" when it comes to comparing the willingness of the
current generation to take on risk compared with those born only a few decades ago.
A role for immigration?
Is there room to counteract, or at least mitigate population ageing pressures through
immigration? At the margin there is, since the median age of new immigrants is around
25 years, which is currently about 10 years less than the median age of the average
Australian. But this effect is already in operation given the significant contribution to
Australia's population growth from immigration over recent years. Also, with populations
ageing globally, immigration cannot be a panacea for all economies.
Conclusions
In summary, ageing of the population will have an increasingly important bearing on various
aspects of the economic outlook. Among other things, it will tend to weigh on growth of
economic activity, labour force participation and the public purse. It may weigh on
productivity growth to the extent that it leads to less risk-taking and innovation. It will also
lead to a rise in the demand for a range of services, including aged care.
The economy will be best placed to handle these significant changes in factor and product
markets if we are responsive to the resulting changes in relative prices and returns to factors
of production. We'll be even better placed if we can act with a degree of foresight.
What sort of responses might we expect? It will make sense for a combination of extra
savings to be built up and for us to do what we can to raise participation rates, including by
having people work later into their lives. Extra capital from the rise in savings can be
channelled into both goods and services, though it is likely that productive resources (labour
and capital) will be required to shift towards the services sectors.
While the challenges are relatively obvious, one aspect of ageing presents us with valuable
opportunities. Rising longevity will provide us with the ability and willingness to work later into
life, without necessarily implying a change in the share of our lifetimes we spend in
retirement. This will allow us to bolster participation, savings and reduce the burden on the
public purse. Recognising that on average we'll enjoy longer lives, may also encourage a rise
in education and training. We may also become more willing to pursue risky, innovative
business opportunities at any given age compared with what had been the norm for earlier
generations. Public policies have an obvious role to play, facilitating these adjustments
where possible.
The Reserve Bank can best contribute to the necessary adjustments to population ageing by
maintaining low and stable inflation. This does two things. First, it encourages investors and
businesses to focus on generating real returns rather than trying to avoid the effects of high
inflation. Second, it enables changes in relative prices and relative returns to factors of
production to be observed more clearly than in a world where inflation is high and variable.
And it is these price signals that will facilitate the necessary adjustments in behaviour.