Natalie Jackson

The Potential Collateral Demographic Dividend

This chapter connects the concept known as the potential demographic dividend with key features of Indigenous and non-Indigenous demography − namely markedly different age structures occurring as the result of being at different stages of demographic transition − in three ‘Anglo-Celtic Settler’ countries: New Zealand, Australia and Canada. It proposes that when relatively youthful subpopulations such as Māori and Australian and Canadian Aboriginals co-exist alongside their structurally older counterparts who are disproportionately heading for retirement they comprise an economic dividend system that produces the potential for a collateral demographic dividend. A distinction is also introduced between a relative collateral dividend, which has the potential to occur for the younger population per se, and an aggregate collateral dividend, which has the potential to occur for the overall population − this being largely dependent on the size of the younger population.