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Labour Force and Human Capital

Question: How many people does it take to make the economy work?

Answer: Only one, and it's me.

Proof:

The population of the United States is 180 million, but there are 64 million over 60 years of age, leaving 116 million to do the work.

People under 21 total 59 million which leaves 57 million people to do the work.

Because of the 31 million government employees, there are only 26 million left to do the work.

Six million in the armed forces leave twenty million workers.

Deduct 17 million State, county, and city employees, and we are left with three million to do the work.

There are 2,500,000 people in hospitals, asylums, and treatment facilities leaving half a million workers.

However, 450,000 of these are bums or others who will not work, leaving 50,000 to do the work.

Now, it may interest you to know that there are 49,998 people in jail so that leaves just 2 people to do all the work, and that is you and me, and I'm getting tired of doing everything myself!

Слова и выражения:

total – составлять в целом

deduct – вычитать

asylum – сумасшедший дом

bum – бродяга, лодырь

jail – тюремная камера

armed forces – вооруженные силы

treatment facilities – лечебные учреждения

Exercise 1

Answer the questions:

1. What is the population of the USA?

2. How many elderly people who do not work live in the USA?

3. How many people serve in the army?

4. How many people are State, county, and city employees?

5. What can one man do for the entire economy to make it work?

Labour Force

Labour force is one of the key points in each economy. It consists of a large part of what is called population. So, the amount and quality of labour force depend largely on the tendencies that affect population, which, in its turn, influences production.

In the years from 1950 to 1990 the world's population doubled, and now it is over 5,500 billion people. Only about 14 percent of the population growth was in developed countries, with around 86 percent in less developed countries. In developed countries this growth was caused by fertility and age distribution, while in less developed countries the main reasons were higher life expectancies and high birthrates. Life expectancy in developed countries was 74.0 years in 1990 as compared to 65.7 years in 1955 (62.0 and 41.0 respectively in less developed countries). By the 1900 the birthrate in developed countries fell to 1.9 births per woman. In the less developed countries it is 3.9 births per woman, which is still high enough to contribute substantially to population growth.

Lower birthrates and longer life lead to «population aging» which is most rapid in the developed world. The median age here rose from 28.2 in 1950 to about 35 close to the end of the century. In less developed countries the median age at present is only around 22.

The fear of population aging leads governments to introduce policies which aim at inducing people to have larger families (banning contraception and abortion, offering financial aid for women with babies, etc.)

At the same time many people still fear that global population growth will overwhelm the capacity of economies, and destroy the global ecosystem. Since Thomas Robert Malthus many economists believed that the growing number of people would make land increasingly scarce, and the rising food prices would leave the growing population starve.