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dependency paradigm — English
The general conception that the economically active people in the population have to care for those who are not economically active. The elderly and the children in a population cannot work to produce food or earn money, therefore they depend on their children or parents or other people for their livelihood. It is normally accepted that the individuals aged between 15 and 65 years constitute the economically active group of the population who contribute to the economic productivity. Those younger than 15 years and those older than 65 years usually constitute the non-economically active group. A dependency ratio is calculated to express the number of people (individuals) who are dependent on every 100 economically active people. Theoretically, a low dependency ratio is desirable since it means that a large proportion of the population is contributing to the economy. A high dependency ratio is economically undesirable, since it means that a small group of working people must provide for a large group of dependents. Dependency ratios for the richer, more developed countries are much lower than those for poor, developing states. In the developed countries the dependency ratios typically varies from 50 to 70 per cent, but in the developing countries it often exceeds 100 per cent which indicates that there are more dependents than producers in the population. The dependency ratio has one important shortcoming in that it uses age as the only variable to identify the productive and unproductive groups of the population. It does not take into account those people who can work, but cannot find employment (that is, the unemployed). The general conception of dependency cannot – and does not – rely solely on the dependency ratio to express the state of production and dependency in a country or region.
