An economic-demographic dynamical system

Human population growth has been called the biggest issue the humanity faces in the 21st century, and although this statement is globally true, locally, many Western economies have been experiencing population decline. Europe is in fact homeland for population decline. By 2050 many large European economies are predicted to lose large parts of their population. In this work, we consider the dynamical system that corresponds to the model introduced by Volpert et al. [Nonlinear Anal. 159 (2017) 408–423]. With the help of this model, we illustrate scenarios that can lead, in the long-run, to sharp population decline and/or deterioration of the economy. We also illustrate that even when under certain conditions the population will go extinct, temporarily it might experience growth.