LONDON – Countries must act now to keep slowing population growth from wreaking havoc on their long-term economic prospects, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said in a semiannual report on Tuesday. The report said aging populations have already begun to hinder economic growth in some nations — and that in emerging Europe, the drop in the share of working-age people is projected to reduce annual per capita GDP growth by an average of almost 0.4 percentage points a year between 2024 and 2050.

“Already today, demography is eroding growth in living standards, and it is going to be a headwind for GDP growth in the future,” EBRD Chief Economist Beata Javorcik said. Post-communist nations, she said, “are getting old before getting rich,” with the median age hitting 37 at a time when the average GDP per capita stands at $10,000. That was a quarter of the amount recorded when the median age hit that level in advanced economies in the 1990s.

The report pointed to a range of factors driving the fall in the birth rate — from shifts in social norms to a reduction in women’s career earnings from having a baby. But while nearly all EBRD nations have at least some incentives in place to boost the birth rate, Javorcik said these measures have not produced a meaningful, sustained change in any country. Migration at the level needed to counteract falling births is not politically palatable in most places, the report said, and most citizens are “ambivalent” about boosting AI use to improve productivity.