Demographic influences on economic resiliency: Revisiting the developing country growth collapse of the 1970s and 1980s

This paper bridges two related, but up to now, unconnected literatures: economic growth stability and population‐economic growth. The paper differs from previous population‐economic growth analyses by focusing on instability of economic growth in developing countries. This study contributes to a previous paper on the developing country growth collapse by adding important demographic variables. The paper provides an explanation for ‘new’ negative correlations of population and economic growth: because 1960s were a relatively smooth time for economic growth, youth dependency did not seem important; however, during turbulent 1970s and 1980s, countries with falling dependency burdens weathered economic shocks better. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.