Charting the Economic Life Cycle.

The shape of the demographic life cycle is of fundamental interest, which demographers recognize through extensive efforts to estimate, describe, and interpret the age-shapes of fertility, mortality, marriage, divorce, and migration. These age-shapes are influenced by biology, culture, economic constraints, and individual choice. Similarly, the shape of the economic life cycle is of fundamental interest in its own right, and this shape is influenced by the same set of factors. Here we are primarily concerned with the estimation and description of the basic economic life cycle and some illustrative comparisons of how it differs across countries and over time within countries in recent years. The life cycle is a longitudinal concept, referring to the passage through life of an individual or a generation. It is most properly examined using longitudinal data. Nonetheless, data limitations and the desire for measures that reflect current conditions often lead demographers to employ cross-sectional measures such as the period total fertility rate and period life expectancy, and for the most part we also will be examining cross-sectional data in our exploration of the economic life cycle. When we speak of the economic life cycle we refer to these cross-sectional age patterns. Later we discuss how their shapes have changed over time. Demographers have analyzed how changes across generations in the shape of longitudinal age profiles can distort cross-sectional measures (tempo and quantum effects), and it would no doubt be revealing to analyze economic age profiles from this perspective as well. Economic behavior over the life cycle can be summarized by the amount consumed at each age and by the amount produced through labor at each age. One sort of economic dependency occurs when consumption exceeds labor earnings, a condition that distinguishes periods in childhood and old age. From this point of view, an older person is economically dependent even