UNICEF Policy Brief: Demographic Dividend for Belarus

The demographic dividend potential arises when the growth of working-age population is faster than the growth of the dependent young generation in the situation of declining fertility. It opens up the possibilities of the additional investments in children and adolescents and reaping these investment returns – harnessing the demographic dividend. Belarus is currently well-positioned for these investments, and the population ageing challenge only adds urgency to the necessity to invest in the future. According to the WB, the ratio of dependent population (children aged 0-14 and elderly aged 65 and older) per working-age adults aged 15-65 years is 0.46 – lower than in many ECA countries. The next 15-20 years present a window of opportunity for ‘demographic
dividend’ where wise investments in fewer dependents now could effectively capacitate the next generation workforce to be able to pay pension contributions and to look after a larger dependent population.

This brief presents the results of DemDiv modelling for Belarus. This tool allowed us to see how additional investments in children and youth could affect the economic and human development outcomes in the next 40 years. Harnessing the demographic dividend through economic, education and health policy interventions would result in significant improvement in Human Development index for Belarus (from current 0.77 to 0.90). It would bring effects
equivalent to 2.5 years increase in schooling; increase of 3 years in female life expectancy; and 164 thousand lives saved due to lower mortality over the next 40 years.

Overall, simulations show that by 2030 all demographic dividend-related policy interventions could contribute to over two-fifths of the projected GDP per capita growth envisioned in the 2030 target of 4% aggregate growth (SDG 8.1.1).

• Demographic Dividend for Belarus | PDF