Counting the Cost of Resisting Pension Reform in France

(Bloomberg) --

The size of France's working age population has been shrinking since 2012 and demographic factors mean this is likely to continue over the next decade -- despite some support from immigration. Bloomberg Economics expects this depletion to be more than offset by an increase in the propensity to work among people of working-age, older workers in particular. But if there's persistent resistance to pension reforms, participation among older workers may fail to increase quickly enough to make up for the demographic burden. This could reduce annual growth by about 0.2 percentage points. Still, changes in labor input are only a marginal contributor to trends in output growth: Productivity is a much more important determinant of the economic potential.

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