Aging Europe

Of course, if you take more and more of your population out of the labor force then your GDP will decline. This applies if you are removing people from your labor force because they are considered too old (Europe) or if they are women (see the Taliban) or whatnot.

The only way out is if productivity increases faster than the labor force shrinks. Unfortunately productivity increasing is not very simple nor very easy.

France has a payroll tax of 49% just for retirement and disability funding? I have a hard time believing that number.

Everyone ignores a vital statistic in the evaluation of the Aging crisis. Supply of medical and social services to these Elderly will reduce the total sum of Labor engaged in active Productivity. Every Study envisions the Young being available for maintaining Productivity. Care for the Elderly is not a Productive activity, and can never be; though Economists like to equate the Health industry as an element of Productivity.

Labor for the Health industry is a reduction of Labor assets, and Productivity; this resulting in Economies being unable to maintain current levels of Productivity with available Labor elements with static technology. Advancing technological Production will have to make up the difference, but with an unnatural Labor decline. One must remember current Medical technology insists on more highly-trained, more intensive Labor employment. This means more expensive higher numbers of Health providers to numbers of Sick; the number of Elderly vastly increasing the latter number. lgl

Shipman somewhat overstates the case. According to the Social Security Administration, France does indeed have a total payroll tax rate of 49.3 percent (33.9% on the employer, 15.4% on the employee), but this includes payments for many programs we don't have in the US, as well as other that we fund separately, such as unemployment compensation and workers compensation. The relevant comparison for our Social Security retirment program in 16.45% in France (6.65% on the employee and 9.8% on the employer).

Even if we accept the claim that increases in productivity will compensate for a smaller workforce, wouldn't that still leave European nations falling way behind the US? The US would enjoy the same increases in productivity, but with a much larger workforce. With a higher percentage of the US population working, per capita GDP would increase faster than in Europe.

For the leading European nations, per capita GDP is now about 70% of what it is in the US. If US GDP grows at 1% a year faster than in Europe, by the end of this century per capita GDP in Europe will be somewhere around 20% of that in the US.

So if that happens, then yes, Europe will decline in economic significance. It's hard to see how they can avoid this.