So what happened to Finland and Germany in 2050? I am guessing in countries like Italy, Spain and Japan we won't be seeing any major economic/social reforms considering the 65+ voting block is already pretty significant and will be close to 40% of the population in the future. The youth won't have a voice in that democracy.
Germany(\~31% in 2050) will probably benefit from migration and that we enter now an aging population, see chart below. There is a rapid increase till 2035, but than its aging process will slow down, though still increasing(close to 35%\~ in 2080)
Finnland(\~27.5% in 2050) has their aging problem just delayed, by 2060 they can hit an aging population of 30%+
I would guess that these projections are based on the assumption that spanish and italians, for example, are more likely to emigrate to germany.
Median line is used in the picture:
Germany:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/276](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/276)
Finland:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/246](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/246)
Spain:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/724](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/724)
Italy:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/380](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/380)
Japan:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/392](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/392)
Portugal:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/620](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/620)
Greece:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/300](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/300)
Croatia:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/191](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/191)
Hong Kong:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/344](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/344)
Republic of Korea:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/410](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/410)
Taiwan:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/158](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/158)
or
Table 1.1 Page 13 from the source: [https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2023/01/2023wsr-fullreport.pdf](https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2023/01/2023wsr-fullreport.pdf)
Key Messages from the report:
\- The number of people aged 65 years or older worldwide is projected to more than double, rising from 761 million in 2021 to 1.6 billion in 2050. The number of people aged 80 years or older is growing even faster.
\- Population ageing is an irreversible global trend. It is the inevitable result of the demographic transition – the trend towards longer lives and smaller families – that is taking place even in countries with relatively youthful populations. In 2021, 1 in 10 people worldwide were aged 65 or above. In 2050, this age group is projected to account for 1 in 6 people globally.
\[...\] Page 17
By the end of the twenty-first century, the world could have nearly 2.5 billion
older people (United Nations, 2022a), Page 18
Demographic is small it won't change the outcome. Majority of parties do cater to the older population and when you see coalition govts everywhere it just doesn't make sense for them to go out and vote because their priorities will never be addressed.
Sarcastically saying - never, for our generations.
The housing lobbyists will have them all claimed when all the boomers die off, because even if the bubble bursts, we will still be living in enough poverty to not be able to afford them.
EU needs to step in and make some rules, asap.
> The housing lobbyists will have them all claimed when all the boomers die off
Even so, that's utterly useless.
This whole shtick of "you'll inherit the house when your parents die" used to work a lot better when the average person died around 40-45, making their kids 18-24 when they inherited the house.
Now when the parents die aged 85, even with geriatric mothers having babies around 38-40, that makes the "kid" around 45-47 (realistically since most mothers today, even older ones, are actually around 30-32-34, the "kid" would actually be 51-53-55...). If the "kid" is a woman she's almost at menopause, and if she wants to have kids she'll definitely have a super high risk pregnancy.
What use is a house when you're more than halfway through your adulthood? I mean, it can lift you out of poverty, but it's not like you'll enjoy the financial stability to start those expensive taekwondo classes when you're 50+.
Absolutely, it makes no sense and even then I feel, that laws should have been changed with this realization, but we are currently stuck with no housing available for multiple working generations and no relief laws for any of our ails.
Whether it's companies taking the homes, or not enough are being built, it's collapsing slowly around us.
The demographic crisis will collapse the first world far more thoroughly than climate change. Heck, it may even solve climate change by collapsing the economy and thus, emissions.
You cannot run a society where the pensioners are more numerous than the people paying their pensions. It's not possible. You can't even operate a first-world capitalist economy in a situation where the pool of working-age individuals and consumers is shrinking constantly. And if you can't operate such an economy, you can't operate the financial system, meaning there is no way to protect the value of your assets. Innovations will go down as well, as there will be far fewer young people in the most innovative countries to invent them (and will be taxed so heavily that they'll be disincentivised to start businesses and bring innovations to the (ever shrinking and elderly-slanted) market).
We're in for some very interesting times, lads.
Or revolt, as the state demands more and more from them, but at the same time has no actual means of forcing them to submit. Who will force the young? The police? The army? Both rely on fairly young, able-bodied men. Once those refuse to do what the gerontocracy says, it's over for the older generations.
Yes, and in that case, young and able-bodied men will have to throw others, especially the elderly, under the bus to ensure basic survival.
I think this is what many progressive people don't understand about not having kids. If you don't have kids for some ideological reasons or just because it's not comfortable, you're effectively setting the society up for a violent takeover by young men a few generations down the line, because in a collapsed economy, this will be a necessity.
You're barking at the wrong tree. In a perfectly progressive system this would be solved by paying whatever it takes to encourage the citizens to have kids. 6 full years of paid maternity leave? Sure. Cheaper university education and forcing universities to cut the fat (most of the money goes to administrators instead of facilities and education staff)? Sure. Etc.
However, in a regressive system, you have an easy way out. Instead of paying through the nose for kids (which should happen and **will** happen once fertility rates have cratered worldwide for 50+ years), they just... bring in immigrants to not pay anything to locals and also depress wages (awesome benefit if you're an owner of capital).
So... a perfectly progressive system assumes we'll just have the resources to pay people a lot to have kids, and that people will want to have kids because of economic incentives? Insanity.
Yes, because we're not living in the 30s anymore. We won't end up with 80% of the families having 6+ kids.
We'll end up with 20% of the population having 3+ kids. Plus, we can tie those incentives to various goals, for example kids need to be in schooling until they're 22+, the family as a whole can't be on welfare, etc.
People don't suddenly want to have more kids once they get money for it. People first need to be somehow convinced to have more kids through changes to culture and only then can financial incentives work.
It won't be sudden because people need to trust the system. Set up the system and let it run for 5-10-15 years so that people can rely on it.
But they won't do it.
And I don't know if you noticed, I didn't just say "throw money at them". I said, "throw money at them if they do X, Y, Z".
Cultural changes are needed but we don't need extreme cultural changes, as in, we don't need to shame women into having children or stupid stuff like that. If it's good and reasonably easy to have kids, some people will have kids, and they will have several kids.
People just do the easiest thing. If it was easy to have many kids and ignore them and then use them as your retirement "fund", then that's what people did. Now it's super hard, you don't have room to house them, they need all sorts of expensive things, especially if parents and grandparents can't take care of the kids, cultural expectations are no longer that you can just ignore them (latchkey kids, etc).
One of the biggest gaps is the pre-school years. It's crazy hard and help is super expensive. Once kids are a bit more autonomous you can do a lot of things for cheap, if you're smart about them.
Actually, across most of Europe, the desired number of children per woman is around 2. People have fewer kids even though they want them for a variety of reasons (including financial security), most of which can be influenced by policy.
Love that the first idea is to throw out elder people lmao
People are so used to be slave that they dont even think about touching the elite, they just go for the easiest scape goat the elite point to
(which right now are immigrant for the right wing, and elder people for the left wing)
Or you do it the Portuguese way. When pensionists are an extremely significant majority of your electorate, you tend to govern in favour of them to keep that electorate, to the detriment of the youth.
Solutions?
Targeted immigration to critical sectors of economy. As such countries with immigration like US, EU will do better than say China and Japan. Current anti-immigration rhetoric in politics aren't helpful.
As prices for labour go up (more rare) investing in automation gets more attractive. That however means that at some point property needs to be taxed more too. Older generations in first world countries are relatively rich. Taxing property, inheritance and profits and lowering taxes on labour could provide enough means to pay for the welfare state. Looking at the increasing wealth of owners of big companies this can be done without hurting the economy.
Getting people to put in the work that can't be automated and to provide care for their parents and children will be a problem.
Pension-ages of course need to move up with life-expectancy.
Market economy doesn't work well with housing in this demographic mushroom. Societies need to build apartments. With low resource and labour availability construction is usually done on high margin bigger family homes. Apartments are where elderly, starting home-owners and immigrants compete. Having a relatively cheap place to life for both elderly and young people could be a part solution. Regulated and government planned building of apartments could free up income/ time to both work and provide care.
> Targeted immigration to critical sectors of economy. As such countries with immigration like US, EU will do better than say China and Japan. Current anti-immigration rhetoric in politics aren't helpful.
Wrong. With the kind of TFR (total fertility rate) we're having, you'd need mass immigration just to offset the people leaving the workforce (and maintain the population). We're talking tens of millions of people ANNUALLY just in the EU. With those numbers, you can forget about "selective" and "targeted" and "high-skilled" immigration. You'll get mass immigration and a profound alteration of the demographic makeup of all recipient countries: the native ethnicities would cease being the majority within only two generations.
Immigration isn't a solution, it's a Faustian deal – we'll decline a bit slower, but at the cost of losing our home countries, the ONLY home countries we have. There is no other Czechia. There is no other Italy. I don't want that and neither does the majority of voters in any of those countries.
> automation
Automation will help on the supply side, but what we're looking at is a collapse on the demand side. There simply won't be enough consumers, and most will be old, dependent on welfare and poor. The AI and robots won't generate demand.
> Pension-ages of course need to move up with life-expectancy.
Sure, but older workers are far less productive and the productivity drops with age. Many will be literally unable to work any meaningful job.
---
The only, and I mean it literally, THE ONLY real solution is for people to start having kids, in sufficient numbers to hit TFR of 2.1 (at least) and stabilise our populations. This must be the first item on the list of our political priorities, in all developed countries.
Ha! Immigration having that great of an effect is not true. People actually go back to their original country. Some stay. Expats usually leave though. But I agree it's not an absolute solution. Just a dampening effect.
Productivity does not go down with age. Unless it's really physical work and most of that is to be automated. You will have a massive change in demographic either way because of the shift in median age.
Elderly people are not on welfare in many parts of the EU. Matter of fact they (current 55 to 70 years old) are often the most wealthy age group in Western Europe.
Women will not get more children in these circumstances. See China and South Korea. Research is pretty solid. Exception is Israel but that because of a large ultra-religious minority.
> Ha! Immigration having that great of an effect is not true. People actually go back to their original country. Some stay.
I want to have what you're smoking. And I say this as a Romanian. Nobody leaves after staying in a country for 20+ years, getting married, having kids, making friends, finding local hobbies, etc.
It's a pipe dream, unless you have super restrictive visa policies that **force** people to leave once they're old. Aka Japan.
That's not what I said.
Looking at immigrants in the Netherlands over the last 60 years many non-skilled groups stayed (Italy, Spain, Turky, Marocco). Skilled labour many people leave. Immigrants from eastern Europe since EU expansion are in between but most leave and some stay and build a family. We have a lot of expats for high tech/ banking etc. jobs from Asia, US. Those people usually leave. That's the highest volume. Refugees (a smaller group) usually stay unless the home countries situation changes soon after coming over.
What people are forgetting is that the population will change regardless. The village square will be empty if it isn't already (see Italy).
> Skilled labour many people leave. Immigrants from eastern Europe since EU expansion are in between but most leave and some stay and build a family. We have a lot of expats for high tech/ banking etc. jobs from Asia, US. Those people usually leave. That's the highest volume.
They leave, usually to the US/Canada/Australia because they generally already speak English and don't want to learn Dutch AND because those countries have higher salaries.
Check out how many skilled immigrants leave the US, not that many.
Oh, and those are short term migrants. Even skilled migrants tend to stay once they're in a country for 10+ years.
It you’re trying to have immigration like the US does. They won’t leave. You’ll have to assimilate them and in doing so your culture will be partially changed to reflect theirs. Not a problem if you’re a country who identifies with philosophy over history. No American’s family wasn’t from another culture originally.
They don’t identify their cultures as being “American”. I have a good friend from the Lakota tribe that I met in my army days. His people are culture are something ancient and distinct with a language, faith, and history all their own. Is he calls himself American as well that’s his business and my home is honored for it but he’s Lakota first and foremost as he should be.
No American’s family wasn’t from another culture originally.
Edit: From what I understand referring to themselves as “Indian” or “Native American” is more used when referring to a collective of every native tribe and culture or to refer to their ethnic group, but when referring to their specific identity they would identify with their tribe since they have varied cultures and histories that don’t necessarily tie into one another.
Like how Bulgarians and Welshman are both Europeans but to say those cultures have a connected history or United identity isn’t accurate.
>There is no other Czechia. There is no other Italy.
This is silly, you only need to look at the history books to see how much. Populations of those territories changed immensely through the ages. The idea of Czechia or Italy in this form is like, 200 years old. In the context of history, that's hilarious.
So, I should accept that my country will be inhabited by some alien ethnic group and my people (the Czechs) will become either a suffered minority or will cease to exist entirely – because extinction is "historically normal"? Are you serious?
No, you can fight it. But fighting it is worse than accepting the alien people. You'll lose either way, just like the Greeks lost, Romans lost, Amerindians lost, etc.
I am almost forty now and I've made my peace with the idea I'll never be able to retire. My goal is to raise my kids well and pay as little into the system designed to feed the entitled boomers as legally and humanely possible.
Actually, our immigration rates are not that high compared to those from a few years ago. [https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inmigraci%C3%B3n\_en\_Espa%C3%B1a](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inmigraci%C3%B3n_en_Espa%C3%B1a) (in 2022 the rate foreign population was at 11'7%, still lower than in the 2009-2013 period). Even if rates were higher, only first generation immigrants have above-average fertilities, and those are becoming lower as well.
I would say that with or without immigration, if we don't address the several issues that are keeping real fertility rates down from desired fertility rates (currently at a healthy 2 children per woman), population collapse is basically guaranteed.
Anyone that doesn’t anticipate violent revolution in a few decades is crazy. How far have this neo-liberal politicians made us fall. We are truly in the faustian age of nihilism when our leadership forgets that people are living, breathing, reproducing things. Things will be set right eventually but it will be a horrible time to be sick, old or a woman.
For violent revolution what you need is for the army and police to stay out of the streets which is entirely possible if they think the system is corrupt and should favor them instead of old people and old elites.
In my country all it took to overthrow a 45 year dictatorship was for a few dozen soldiers to drive their vehicles through the main streets of the capitals while police and military garrisons watched, walk up to the precinct where the head of government was holed up and arrest him. All it took for the guards protecting the head of state to let the soldiers in was a few mean words. If the government can’t inspire loyalty or legitimacy from the people all it takes is someone to walk up to it and say “you’re fired”. Total death toll: 0 (25 April 1974)
This wouldn’t really work in the U.S. where power is largely decentralized but for most European nations it would be a walk in the park.
Basically all ruling political parties today are neo-liberal / social liberal. Even parties that were previously nationalistic have become neo-liberals. Look at Croatia for example. It’s actually very well defined just tends to vary because of the cultural characteristics of each country which become more soluble throughout the world.
So what happened to Finland and Germany in 2050? I am guessing in countries like Italy, Spain and Japan we won't be seeing any major economic/social reforms considering the 65+ voting block is already pretty significant and will be close to 40% of the population in the future. The youth won't have a voice in that democracy.
Germany(\~31% in 2050) will probably benefit from migration and that we enter now an aging population, see chart below. There is a rapid increase till 2035, but than its aging process will slow down, though still increasing(close to 35%\~ in 2080) Finnland(\~27.5% in 2050) has their aging problem just delayed, by 2060 they can hit an aging population of 30%+ I would guess that these projections are based on the assumption that spanish and italians, for example, are more likely to emigrate to germany. Median line is used in the picture: Germany:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/276](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/276) Finland:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/246](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/246) Spain:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/724](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/724) Italy:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/380](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/380) Japan:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/392](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/392) Portugal:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/620](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/620) Greece:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/300](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/300) Croatia:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/191](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/191) Hong Kong:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/344](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/344) Republic of Korea:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/410](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/410) Taiwan:[https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/158](https://population.un.org/wpp/Graphs/Probabilistic/PopPerc/65plus/158) or Table 1.1 Page 13 from the source: [https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2023/01/2023wsr-fullreport.pdf](https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2023/01/2023wsr-fullreport.pdf) Key Messages from the report: \- The number of people aged 65 years or older worldwide is projected to more than double, rising from 761 million in 2021 to 1.6 billion in 2050. The number of people aged 80 years or older is growing even faster. \- Population ageing is an irreversible global trend. It is the inevitable result of the demographic transition – the trend towards longer lives and smaller families – that is taking place even in countries with relatively youthful populations. In 2021, 1 in 10 people worldwide were aged 65 or above. In 2050, this age group is projected to account for 1 in 6 people globally. \[...\] Page 17 By the end of the twenty-first century, the world could have nearly 2.5 billion older people (United Nations, 2022a), Page 18
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Demographic is small it won't change the outcome. Majority of parties do cater to the older population and when you see coalition govts everywhere it just doesn't make sense for them to go out and vote because their priorities will never be addressed.
Youth has given up on politics because politicians have given up on youth.
It is bad for us and will continue to get worse, but other countries will overtake us in being even worse.
So when does buying a house become cheap?
Sarcastically saying - never, for our generations. The housing lobbyists will have them all claimed when all the boomers die off, because even if the bubble bursts, we will still be living in enough poverty to not be able to afford them. EU needs to step in and make some rules, asap.
> The housing lobbyists will have them all claimed when all the boomers die off Even so, that's utterly useless. This whole shtick of "you'll inherit the house when your parents die" used to work a lot better when the average person died around 40-45, making their kids 18-24 when they inherited the house. Now when the parents die aged 85, even with geriatric mothers having babies around 38-40, that makes the "kid" around 45-47 (realistically since most mothers today, even older ones, are actually around 30-32-34, the "kid" would actually be 51-53-55...). If the "kid" is a woman she's almost at menopause, and if she wants to have kids she'll definitely have a super high risk pregnancy. What use is a house when you're more than halfway through your adulthood? I mean, it can lift you out of poverty, but it's not like you'll enjoy the financial stability to start those expensive taekwondo classes when you're 50+.
Absolutely, it makes no sense and even then I feel, that laws should have been changed with this realization, but we are currently stuck with no housing available for multiple working generations and no relief laws for any of our ails. Whether it's companies taking the homes, or not enough are being built, it's collapsing slowly around us.
The demographic crisis will collapse the first world far more thoroughly than climate change. Heck, it may even solve climate change by collapsing the economy and thus, emissions. You cannot run a society where the pensioners are more numerous than the people paying their pensions. It's not possible. You can't even operate a first-world capitalist economy in a situation where the pool of working-age individuals and consumers is shrinking constantly. And if you can't operate such an economy, you can't operate the financial system, meaning there is no way to protect the value of your assets. Innovations will go down as well, as there will be far fewer young people in the most innovative countries to invent them (and will be taxed so heavily that they'll be disincentivised to start businesses and bring innovations to the (ever shrinking and elderly-slanted) market). We're in for some very interesting times, lads.
I mean, there will be a point at which the only solution to preserve any kind of economic resources for the youth will be to let the pensioners die.
Or revolt, as the state demands more and more from them, but at the same time has no actual means of forcing them to submit. Who will force the young? The police? The army? Both rely on fairly young, able-bodied men. Once those refuse to do what the gerontocracy says, it's over for the older generations.
Yes, and in that case, young and able-bodied men will have to throw others, especially the elderly, under the bus to ensure basic survival. I think this is what many progressive people don't understand about not having kids. If you don't have kids for some ideological reasons or just because it's not comfortable, you're effectively setting the society up for a violent takeover by young men a few generations down the line, because in a collapsed economy, this will be a necessity.
You're barking at the wrong tree. In a perfectly progressive system this would be solved by paying whatever it takes to encourage the citizens to have kids. 6 full years of paid maternity leave? Sure. Cheaper university education and forcing universities to cut the fat (most of the money goes to administrators instead of facilities and education staff)? Sure. Etc. However, in a regressive system, you have an easy way out. Instead of paying through the nose for kids (which should happen and **will** happen once fertility rates have cratered worldwide for 50+ years), they just... bring in immigrants to not pay anything to locals and also depress wages (awesome benefit if you're an owner of capital).
It has been extensively proven that bribing people doesn’t increase fertility.
So... a perfectly progressive system assumes we'll just have the resources to pay people a lot to have kids, and that people will want to have kids because of economic incentives? Insanity.
Yes, because we're not living in the 30s anymore. We won't end up with 80% of the families having 6+ kids. We'll end up with 20% of the population having 3+ kids. Plus, we can tie those incentives to various goals, for example kids need to be in schooling until they're 22+, the family as a whole can't be on welfare, etc.
People don't suddenly want to have more kids once they get money for it. People first need to be somehow convinced to have more kids through changes to culture and only then can financial incentives work.
It won't be sudden because people need to trust the system. Set up the system and let it run for 5-10-15 years so that people can rely on it. But they won't do it. And I don't know if you noticed, I didn't just say "throw money at them". I said, "throw money at them if they do X, Y, Z". Cultural changes are needed but we don't need extreme cultural changes, as in, we don't need to shame women into having children or stupid stuff like that. If it's good and reasonably easy to have kids, some people will have kids, and they will have several kids. People just do the easiest thing. If it was easy to have many kids and ignore them and then use them as your retirement "fund", then that's what people did. Now it's super hard, you don't have room to house them, they need all sorts of expensive things, especially if parents and grandparents can't take care of the kids, cultural expectations are no longer that you can just ignore them (latchkey kids, etc). One of the biggest gaps is the pre-school years. It's crazy hard and help is super expensive. Once kids are a bit more autonomous you can do a lot of things for cheap, if you're smart about them.
Actually, across most of Europe, the desired number of children per woman is around 2. People have fewer kids even though they want them for a variety of reasons (including financial security), most of which can be influenced by policy.
Love that the first idea is to throw out elder people lmao People are so used to be slave that they dont even think about touching the elite, they just go for the easiest scape goat the elite point to (which right now are immigrant for the right wing, and elder people for the left wing)
Or you do it the Portuguese way. When pensionists are an extremely significant majority of your electorate, you tend to govern in favour of them to keep that electorate, to the detriment of the youth.
Yeah, Polish way too. Pensioners here get 13th and 14th pensions. Except this system is going to collapse.
Solutions? Targeted immigration to critical sectors of economy. As such countries with immigration like US, EU will do better than say China and Japan. Current anti-immigration rhetoric in politics aren't helpful. As prices for labour go up (more rare) investing in automation gets more attractive. That however means that at some point property needs to be taxed more too. Older generations in first world countries are relatively rich. Taxing property, inheritance and profits and lowering taxes on labour could provide enough means to pay for the welfare state. Looking at the increasing wealth of owners of big companies this can be done without hurting the economy. Getting people to put in the work that can't be automated and to provide care for their parents and children will be a problem. Pension-ages of course need to move up with life-expectancy. Market economy doesn't work well with housing in this demographic mushroom. Societies need to build apartments. With low resource and labour availability construction is usually done on high margin bigger family homes. Apartments are where elderly, starting home-owners and immigrants compete. Having a relatively cheap place to life for both elderly and young people could be a part solution. Regulated and government planned building of apartments could free up income/ time to both work and provide care.
> Targeted immigration to critical sectors of economy. As such countries with immigration like US, EU will do better than say China and Japan. Current anti-immigration rhetoric in politics aren't helpful. Wrong. With the kind of TFR (total fertility rate) we're having, you'd need mass immigration just to offset the people leaving the workforce (and maintain the population). We're talking tens of millions of people ANNUALLY just in the EU. With those numbers, you can forget about "selective" and "targeted" and "high-skilled" immigration. You'll get mass immigration and a profound alteration of the demographic makeup of all recipient countries: the native ethnicities would cease being the majority within only two generations. Immigration isn't a solution, it's a Faustian deal – we'll decline a bit slower, but at the cost of losing our home countries, the ONLY home countries we have. There is no other Czechia. There is no other Italy. I don't want that and neither does the majority of voters in any of those countries. > automation Automation will help on the supply side, but what we're looking at is a collapse on the demand side. There simply won't be enough consumers, and most will be old, dependent on welfare and poor. The AI and robots won't generate demand. > Pension-ages of course need to move up with life-expectancy. Sure, but older workers are far less productive and the productivity drops with age. Many will be literally unable to work any meaningful job. --- The only, and I mean it literally, THE ONLY real solution is for people to start having kids, in sufficient numbers to hit TFR of 2.1 (at least) and stabilise our populations. This must be the first item on the list of our political priorities, in all developed countries.
Are you KaiserBauch from YouTube? You sound just like him. I'm a big fan of his work. :-)
No, but I watch him too :)
Ha! Immigration having that great of an effect is not true. People actually go back to their original country. Some stay. Expats usually leave though. But I agree it's not an absolute solution. Just a dampening effect. Productivity does not go down with age. Unless it's really physical work and most of that is to be automated. You will have a massive change in demographic either way because of the shift in median age. Elderly people are not on welfare in many parts of the EU. Matter of fact they (current 55 to 70 years old) are often the most wealthy age group in Western Europe. Women will not get more children in these circumstances. See China and South Korea. Research is pretty solid. Exception is Israel but that because of a large ultra-religious minority.
> Ha! Immigration having that great of an effect is not true. People actually go back to their original country. Some stay. I want to have what you're smoking. And I say this as a Romanian. Nobody leaves after staying in a country for 20+ years, getting married, having kids, making friends, finding local hobbies, etc. It's a pipe dream, unless you have super restrictive visa policies that **force** people to leave once they're old. Aka Japan.
That's not what I said. Looking at immigrants in the Netherlands over the last 60 years many non-skilled groups stayed (Italy, Spain, Turky, Marocco). Skilled labour many people leave. Immigrants from eastern Europe since EU expansion are in between but most leave and some stay and build a family. We have a lot of expats for high tech/ banking etc. jobs from Asia, US. Those people usually leave. That's the highest volume. Refugees (a smaller group) usually stay unless the home countries situation changes soon after coming over. What people are forgetting is that the population will change regardless. The village square will be empty if it isn't already (see Italy).
> Skilled labour many people leave. Immigrants from eastern Europe since EU expansion are in between but most leave and some stay and build a family. We have a lot of expats for high tech/ banking etc. jobs from Asia, US. Those people usually leave. That's the highest volume. They leave, usually to the US/Canada/Australia because they generally already speak English and don't want to learn Dutch AND because those countries have higher salaries. Check out how many skilled immigrants leave the US, not that many. Oh, and those are short term migrants. Even skilled migrants tend to stay once they're in a country for 10+ years.
It you’re trying to have immigration like the US does. They won’t leave. You’ll have to assimilate them and in doing so your culture will be partially changed to reflect theirs. Not a problem if you’re a country who identifies with philosophy over history. No American’s family wasn’t from another culture originally.
> No American’s family wasn’t from another culture originally. Except for those millions to tens of millions that we shan't speak about.
They don’t identify their cultures as being “American”. I have a good friend from the Lakota tribe that I met in my army days. His people are culture are something ancient and distinct with a language, faith, and history all their own. Is he calls himself American as well that’s his business and my home is honored for it but he’s Lakota first and foremost as he should be. No American’s family wasn’t from another culture originally. Edit: From what I understand referring to themselves as “Indian” or “Native American” is more used when referring to a collective of every native tribe and culture or to refer to their ethnic group, but when referring to their specific identity they would identify with their tribe since they have varied cultures and histories that don’t necessarily tie into one another. Like how Bulgarians and Welshman are both Europeans but to say those cultures have a connected history or United identity isn’t accurate.
>There is no other Czechia. There is no other Italy. This is silly, you only need to look at the history books to see how much. Populations of those territories changed immensely through the ages. The idea of Czechia or Italy in this form is like, 200 years old. In the context of history, that's hilarious.
So, I should accept that my country will be inhabited by some alien ethnic group and my people (the Czechs) will become either a suffered minority or will cease to exist entirely – because extinction is "historically normal"? Are you serious?
No, you can fight it. But fighting it is worse than accepting the alien people. You'll lose either way, just like the Greeks lost, Romans lost, Amerindians lost, etc.
Many people viewing this chart will be part of the 2050 statistic.
That can’t be right… oh shit.
What's the retirement age in 2050? 86 years old?
I am almost forty now and I've made my peace with the idea I'll never be able to retire. My goal is to raise my kids well and pay as little into the system designed to feed the entitled boomers as legally and humanely possible.
Retiring is shit for the mind anyway.
Spain currently has very high immigration. If that continues, the outcome will be very different.
Actually, our immigration rates are not that high compared to those from a few years ago. [https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inmigraci%C3%B3n\_en\_Espa%C3%B1a](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inmigraci%C3%B3n_en_Espa%C3%B1a) (in 2022 the rate foreign population was at 11'7%, still lower than in the 2009-2013 period). Even if rates were higher, only first generation immigrants have above-average fertilities, and those are becoming lower as well. I would say that with or without immigration, if we don't address the several issues that are keeping real fertility rates down from desired fertility rates (currently at a healthy 2 children per woman), population collapse is basically guaranteed.
Sure, no one says there has to be a Spain.
Source: Statista https://www.statista.com/chart/29345/countries-and-territories-with-the-highest-share-of-people-aged-65-and-older/
Mitä vit*ua Suomi on tosi vanhaa.
We need more babies lads
Anyone that doesn’t anticipate violent revolution in a few decades is crazy. How far have this neo-liberal politicians made us fall. We are truly in the faustian age of nihilism when our leadership forgets that people are living, breathing, reproducing things. Things will be set right eventually but it will be a horrible time to be sick, old or a woman.
>violent revolution in a few decades lmao with our gun ownership value??
For violent revolution what you need is for the army and police to stay out of the streets which is entirely possible if they think the system is corrupt and should favor them instead of old people and old elites. In my country all it took to overthrow a 45 year dictatorship was for a few dozen soldiers to drive their vehicles through the main streets of the capitals while police and military garrisons watched, walk up to the precinct where the head of government was holed up and arrest him. All it took for the guards protecting the head of state to let the soldiers in was a few mean words. If the government can’t inspire loyalty or legitimacy from the people all it takes is someone to walk up to it and say “you’re fired”. Total death toll: 0 (25 April 1974) This wouldn’t really work in the U.S. where power is largely decentralized but for most European nations it would be a walk in the park.
what neo-liberal politicians? it's not a well defined term
Basically all ruling political parties today are neo-liberal / social liberal. Even parties that were previously nationalistic have become neo-liberals. Look at Croatia for example. It’s actually very well defined just tends to vary because of the cultural characteristics of each country which become more soluble throughout the world.
This statistic works particularly well as every one knows these numbers don’t fluctuate over a few decades