So in the size of the workforce, the big winner is India.
And women take paid jobs, boosting the size of the workforce.
As important as the size of the workforce will be the change in its age composition.
An expensive welfare state also tends to reduce the size of the workforce.
As the baby boomers retire, the size of the workforce in many places will stagnate or shrink.
In Europe, the higher costs involved in changing the size of the workforce make all these harder.
First, as fertility falls it changes the structure of the population, increasing the size of the workforce relative to the numbers of children and old people.
In his report, Beecroft suggests the rules "make it harder for the [new employer] to reduce costs by reducing the size of the workforce or the level of pay of the transferred workers.
Add in the fact that the size of the workforce of the developed world has started to decline, and will continue to shrink though to the late 2030s, and you can paint a rather sombre picture.
The answer depends on examining the three main channels through which demography influences the economy: changes in the size of the workforce; changes in the rate of productivity growth; and changes in the pattern of savings.
In America, under the same assumptions, the retirement of the baby-boomers would be expected to reduce the economy's potential growth rate by 0.7 percentage points.The real size of the workforce, though, depends on more than the age structure of the population; it depends on who else works (women who currently do not, perhaps, or immigrants) and how long people work.
