Though we live, perceive, and often willingly decide some of these facts, their effects on our societal fabric escape us. It is only by studying such re-configurations that we may encounter the nature of change taking place at the core of our population structure, and thus attempt to plan this nation with a certain degree of knowledge. Given the revelations of last week's press, this figure is expected to have risen considerably since the beginning of this year. Economic slowdown was not the only culprit, although it may have been the major one. Shaping our unemployment curve are more pivotal changes within the population's very structure.
Figures speak of an aging population.
Over the past 30 years, increasing longevity, declining birth rates, and to a lesser extent emigration, have all contributed toward such an outline. Simply put, the average age of the man on the street is no longer 20 years or slightly less as it had been in the 1970s. Currently, about 30.8 percent of the population belong to the under-14 age group, compared to 42.6 percent in 1970. This translates to fewer numbers entering the labor force in the coming decades. This being said, the labor force group of ages 15-64 has grown both in number and as a percentage of the population over the past three decades, representing an estimated 62.1 percent of the total population this year as opposed to 52.3 percent in 1970.