Bernard Salt abandons his Baby Boomer theory

1. How did he get his calculations so wrong? And 2. What forced the retraction?

Let's start with the first. Here is Salt's miscalculation, in his own words [with my comments in square brackets], from his article of 28th May 2011 in The Australian:

"THE Big Tilt is the proposition that from 2011 onwards there will be a fundamental shift in the demography of Australia.

"This is the idea that over the past 60 years the number of people entering the workforce has exceeded the number exiting through retirement. But with what some demographers are calling "the baby bust", and with the first baby boomer born in 1946 turning 65 in 2011, this means that during the 2010s more people will exit than enter the productive stage of the life cycle. [Not true in fact, say demographers. See the Australian Bureau of Statistics catalogue no 3101.0 p, 19.)]

"This is best demonstrated through the interplay between the 15 and the 65 cohorts. [He means that if you count 15-64 as working years, and if you know the number of people who turn 15 in a given year, and if you subtract the number who turn 65, that gives you the number by which the potential workforce has grown. So far a demographer would agree.]

"Between 1981 and 1985 the number of 15-year-olds increased by 23,000 to 271,000, whereas the number of 65-year-olds increased by 7000 to 122,000. This means that in the early 1980s the working-age population expanded by 16,000.

Excuse me!!

[The correct calculation is more like this: 271,000 15-year olds joined the potential workforce in 1985, and 122,000 65-year olds left it, an overall gain of 149,000 potential workers in one year alone.]

"Fast forward 30 years to the 2010s. Over the four years to 2015, the number of 15-year-olds will increase by 3000 to 290,000, whereas the number of 65-year-olds will increase by 33,000 to 246,000. This means that in the early 2010s the working-age population will contract by 30,000."

Excuse me!!

[Bernard, you've done it again! The correct calculation is that in 2015 the working-age population will increase by 290,000 minus 246,000 = plus 44,000. One of the most basic skills required of a demographer is the ability to distinguish between a decline in the size of something (in this case Australia's potential workforce) and a decline in its rate of increase.]

One demographer commented to me, "He does not do any labour force projections. The only data he has is an unsourced table from the ABS purporting to show the net growth in the 15-64 year old group. And while numbers aged 65 is converging on numbers aged 15, it will take longer than he claims."