The fifteen essays in this volume address from several viewpoints the question of what role population change played in East Asia's rapid economic development.

Recent studies show that almost all industrial countries have experienced dramatic decreases in both fertility and mortality rates. This situation has led to aging societies with economies that suffer from both a decline in the working population and a rise in fiscal deficits linked to increased government spending. East Asia exemplifies these trends, and this volume offers an in-depth look at how long-term demographic transitions have taken shape there and how they have affected the economy in the region. The Economic Consequences of Demographic Change in East Asia assembles a group of experts to explore such topics as comparative demographic change, population aging, the rising cost of health care, and specific policy concerns in individual countries. The volume provides an overview of economic growth in East Asia as well as more specific studies on Japan, Korea, China, and Hong Kong. Offering important insights into the causes and consequences of this transition, this book will benefit students, researchers, and policy makers focused on East Asia as well as anyone concerned with similar trends elsewhere in the world.

China is historically famous for its high demographic dividend and its huge working population, and this has driven tremendous economic growth over the past few decades. However, that population has begun to shrink and the Lewis turning point whereby surplus rural population has been absorbed into manufacturing is also approaching, leading to great change in the Chinese labor market. Will this negatively affect China’s economic growth? Can the "Middle-Income Trap" be avoided? What reforms should be made on the labor supply side? This book tackles these key questions. This book is a collection of 14 papers presenting the author’s observations, analysis, and opinions of China’s long-term economic development from the demographic perspective, while analysing real economic problems from the past and including policy recommendations. It provides a critical reference for scholars and students interested in Chinese economic development and demographic perspectives on economic development.

First published in 1964, The Economic Development of South-East Asia: Studies in economic history and political economy contains eight papers originally written for a study group at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. The papers, edited by Professor C. D. Cowan, are written against a background of economic underdevelopment in large parts of Asia. Economic problems increasingly plagued the governments of Asia after the Second World War, and while Western governments were willing to help foster economic development, relations with Asian governments were somewhat hindered by the heritage of their colonial past. Problems also related to the growth of traditional trading ports and export crops, and to the importation of colonial regimes, western funds and skills in the nineteenth century. Such developments come under the loosely generalised concept of imperialism, with its strongly emotional overtones, whose use impedes the objective assessment and analysis of facts. While we understand a good deal about conditions of economic growth in the West, much of what has fostered or retarded growth in other parts of the world remains less clear.

First Published in 2013. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A collection of selected and condensed reports on the broad subject of Population Change in Southeast Asia, this book represents the work of young Southeast Asian social scientists. Their research has helped to cast more light on the problems associated with rapid population growth, more specifically the areas of fertility, population mobility, family planning, the evaluation of family planning programs, and the environmental influence of demographic behaviour.

From Angkor Wat to Agent Orange, Southeast Asia An Environmental History tells the story of some of the most dramatic effects humans have had on the natural and developed environment anywhere in the world and examines the ways in which environmental factors have helped shape the culture, politics, and societies of the region. Ever since the first humanlike creatures arrived some 80,000 years ago, Southeast Asia's varied and challenging environment has helped shape the course of human destiny. From the importance of its spices to 17th-century Europeans to the jungle canopies that sheltered Communist insurgents throughout much of the 20th century, the region's environment has often proven decisive in human affairs. Packed with key facts and analysis, Southeast Asia provides an expert guide to the complex interplay between human societies and the environment from Burma to the Philippines and from Vietnam to Indonesia. How has the environment helped shape politics, trade, and religion? What are the likely consequences of ongoing deforestation for Southeast Asia's people and animals? Part of ABC-CLIO's Nature and Human Societies series, this work charts the region's environmental history from prehistory to modern times and is essential reading for students and experts alike.

The Middle East is experiencing the world’s most prominent youth bulge. Yet many MENA economies’ institutional designs, both formal and informal, favour the power of business elites, systematically discriminating against young people joining the workforce or opening businesses, and thus limiting their ability to contribute to innovation. Large youth populations can be a boon or a curse: nurtured and integrated, they can jumpstart stratospheric growth; but if alienated and confined, they can drain a society politically and economically. The Gulf Cooperation Council countries are no exception to this perilous dilemma. This book explores the problem through a new concept, ‘creative insecurity’: a state’s subjection to an institutional ecosystem that is suppressing opportunities for innovation—to the extent that it is causing economic and political vulnerabilities, which in turn threaten national security. Creative insecurity threatens the longevity of many states today. In this original, incisive study, Dania Thafer argues that GCC member-states should make it a national security imperative to cash in their demographic dividend, by averting the deleterious effects of ill-disposed elite politics. Investing in an innovation ecosystem that harnesses the talent of the youth majority will be crucial for the GCC’s successful transition to the post-oil era.

The Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian Economics offers new insights into the rapidly-developing economies of Southeast Asia. Despite widespread initial deprivation, Southeast Asia has achieved and sustained a remarkable rate of growth, in the course of which tens of millions have successfully escaped severe poverty. Though the economies of the region vary in many dimensions, integration into the wider East Asian network of production and trade is a notable common feature, one that continues a centuries-long history of engagement with global trade. A second striking feature is the pace and extent of transformation in the structure of production and in sources of household income in the region, which has undergone remarkably rapid industrialization and urban growth. However, the search for sustained and sustainable growth through and beyond middle-income continues to confront pressing economic and policy challenges. This Handbook offers a timely and comprehensive overview of Southeast Asian economic development. Organized according to the logic of chronological and thematic unity, it is structured in these sections: Growth and development over the long term Food, agriculture and natural resources Trade, investment and industrialization Population, labor, and human capital Poverty and political economy Twenty-first century challenges This original Handbook, written by experts in their fields, is unique in the breadth and depth of its coverage. Its forward-looking perspective renders it relevant both now and in the future. This advanced level reference work will be essential reading for students, researchers and scholars of Asian Studies, Economics and Southeast Asian studies.

The effect of demography on economic performance has been the subject of intense debate in economics for nearly two centuries. In recent years opinion has swung between the Malthusian views of Coale and Hoover, and the cornucopian views of Julian Simon. Unfortunately, until recently, data were too weak and analytical models too limited to provide clear insights into the relationship. As a result, economists as a group have not been clear or conclusive. This volume, which is based on a collection of papers that heavily rely on data from the 1980s and 1990s and on new analytical approaches, sheds important new light on demographic—economic relationships, and it provides clearer policy conclusions than any recent work on the subject. In particular, evidence from developing countries throughout the world shows a pattern in recent decades that was not evident earlier: countries with higher rates of population growth have tended to see less economic growth. An analysis of the role of demography in the "Asian economic miracle" strongly suggests that changes in age structures resulting from declining fertility create a one-time "demographic gift" or window of opportunity, when the working age population has relatively few dependants, of either young or old age, to support. Countries which recognize and seize on this opportunity can, as the Asian tigers did, realize healthy bursts in economic output. But such results are by no means assured: only for countries with otherwise sound economic policies will the window of opportunity yield such dramatic results. Finally, several of the studies demonstrate the likelihood of a causal relationship between high fertility and poverty. While the direction of causality is not always clear and very likely is reciprocal (poverty contributes to high fertility and high fertility reinforces poverty), the studies support the view that lower fertility at the country level helps create a path out of poverty for many families. Population Matters represents an important further step in our understanding of the contribution of population change to economic performance. As such, it will be a useful volume for policymakers both in developing countries and in international development agencies.