The report, released at the WEF annual meeting taking place in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 21-25, raises profound questions about labor participation and productivity, the cross-border flow of capital, the globalization of labor markets, and the financial viability of pensions and other social-insurance programs. 

"Economic output is determined by labor-force growth and productivity rates," says Richard Samans, managing director of the WEF's Institute for Partnership & Governance. "In countries with significant projected labor shortages, the supply of goods and services may not meet demand and standards of living could fall." 

Among the report's more shocking contentions: 

• In Italy, where the total national debt is already more than 105% of GDP, retirees will outnumber active workers by 2030. 
• Japan would have to increase immigration elevenfold from its current level to make up for the nation's low fertility rate and rapid decline in its working population. 
• And assuming current demographic and economic trends continue, the European Union's share of total global output will shrink from 18% today to 10% in 2050. Japan's share would decline from 8% to 4%. 

OPEN WIDE.  More alarming, economic growth rates could falter as the proportion of retirees in developed countries increases and the cost of retirement systems significantly rises. Soon, state-sponsored "pay-as-you-go" schemes will no longer be financially viable. They need to be reformed and, at least partly, privatized. But many people in the workforce now fear they'll lose out if creaking state pension systems are reformed. Witness the fierce opposition to change in France and Italy. 

Enticing more workers into the labor force of most developed nations won't be easy. A majority of women already work in most developed countries. And raising the pension age is politically unpopular. That's why John Haley, president and CEO of Watson Wyatt, wants to boost immigration to, and the outflow of investment capital from, aging societies. "While no single solution provides a magic bullet, it's clear that the flow of capital and labor across borders can be improved [to maintain economic growth and living standards]" he says. Exporting capital to more dynamic parts of the world could generate more money for the developed world's pension coffers, Haley contends. 

That's one reason many delegates to the Davos powwow favor opening the West's doors wider to migrants. "Increased migration can be a win-win situation for the migrants and the citizens of the host country," says Brunson McKinley, director general of the International Organization for Migration in Geneva. 

Maybe. But given the qualms many people in the U.S., Japan, and Europe have about increased immigration, defusing the developed world's time bomb is clearly going to take plenty of political courage. 

By David Fairlamb (BusinessWeek) in Davos

• текст документа Watson Wyatt Worldwide
• их же фактура
• замещающая миграция (проект ООН, пример РФ)
• британская критика проекта замещающей миграции
• демографический кризис