Wolfgang Lutz at the Future Trends Forum

MEDIA

Between 5-7 June 2013, the Bankinter Foundation of Innovation organized a conference to discuss "Shifting Flows of Capital: Strategies for an Evolving World Economy". Based on his broad knowledge of European demography and human capital development, Wolfgang Lutz was invited to contribute the demographic perspective to the developed strategies.

Wolfgang Lutz’s presentation on global human capital flows emphasizes the following points:

• Throughout history there have been very few human beings, (due to famines, wars, diseases).
• At the moment there are about 7 billion people on the planet, and according to a probabilistic forecast, global population will peak around 9 billion before slightly declining at the end of the century.
• Sub-Saharan Africa, with 800 million people, is likely to double or even triple due to high birthrates and a young population base.
• Eastern Europe is characterized by a shrinking population.
• Economic growth starts with the study of the people who produce it.
• Social change always comes from the bottom up with the emergence of new generations with more education.
• The key in Europe will be whether population aging can be compensated by a base of highly educated young people.
• China has taken Singapore as a model, investing massively in primary education.
• India is quite different from China, with almost half of the population, (particularly females) without any formal education.
• Variables such a labor force participation and health also present interesting phenomena.
• In Europe, in countries like Austria and Germany, migration has mostly been low-skilled migration.
• Science magazine has recently done a review of global population trends.
• The correlation between education and health also presents interesting phenomena.