KEY POINTS:
The Government is being urged to invest in those in the population bulge just about to enter the workforce, before New Zealand's "population bonus" becomes its "population onus".
Waikato University Professor Ian Pool, one of the country's leading demographers, says the time is ripe for investing in the future of the "baby blippers" generation, which arose from a spike in births around 1991.
"The blippers are just coming out of school now and this is a window of opportunity," he told the Herald. "We have to move very rapidly and invest in their education and in integrating them into the labour force."
He praised Government initiatives to increase training resources in various sectors, but said retaining workers was also a challenge in the face of beckoning overseas lifestyles and salaries.
The blippers arise from one of three spikes in birth rates in the past 50 years. These eventually inject the workforce with a relatively larger proportion of the population, called a "population bonus". But when a large bracket of workers retires, it creates a "population onus".
Professor Pool said making the most of the blipper bonus was vital as it would make it easier to meet the demands of retiring baby boomers around 2030.
It would also lead to a double windfall, as the greater economic return would yield further investment.
"If we fail to invest, we've turned our back on them and we'll find ourselves with a double whammy in 2030, when we have to disinvest through welfare [for retiring baby boomers]."
Professor Pool delivered his message to senior public servants earlier this week and re-iterated it yesterday at the Population Association NZ conference at Te Papa in Wellington.
New Zealand had already failed to take advantage of a double-headed baby boom from the early 1960s and the early 1970s, he said.
Instead of capitalising on these population bonuses, the late 1980s saw high unemployment, a neglect of human capital and an outflow of workers overseas, which even had a hand in today's so-called man drought.
By 2030, about 19 per cent of the population will be over 65, and the costs of looking after the boomers will increase as they move into their 80s and health problems worsen.
"If I were a baby boomer, I'd be screaming for investment into the blippers because they are the best insurance policy I could have for old age," Professor Pool said.
He said New Zealand still had about nine years to invest in the working years of the last baby boomers, but the window of opportunity from the baby blippers was just starting to open.
He told the conference New Zealand's demography was vulnerable because it could change rapidly due to fluctuating migrant flows and birth rates, which lead to spikes in the relative size and nature of the workforce.
