Does the demographic dividend with human capital development yield an economic dividend? Evidence from Central Asia

ABSTRACT Both fertility and mortality rates are declining in the five Central Asian countries, so far resulting in an increasingly working-age population. The main question is whether these countries can benefit from this demographic transition while having different economic structures and diverse ethnicities. Our article shows the importance of demographic, economic, and human capital indicators and the influential role of governance indicators such as the Political Corruption Index and Egalitarian Democracy Index for economic growth. Based on the data from 1991 to 2018, the analysis has been conducted by employing fixed effect estimation with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors. The findings indicate that human capital with proper education and an appropriately absorbed labour force does have a more powerful effect on the demographic benefit. In addition, improving the quality of governance has a significant impact on economic growth.