The world is growing older. There has been an increase in the global population due to a decline in fertility immortal traits.
Studies have found that the number of people over the age of 65 will triple by 2050. Low birth rates and improving health in developed and developing countries mean people are living longer.
WHY POPULATION AGING IS A PROBLEM?
The aging population is an inescapable effect of the falling Total Fertility Rate in the great majority of the world. On average, a woman in a nation has to have 2.1 children to maintain a steady population; about 5% of girls are never able to become mothers. Some die young and some are incapable of having children.
China’s TFR has dropped to 1.69 children per mother, and girls are sometimes culled from births. India is barely on the positive side at 2.2 now but is steadily dropping.
Outside of Africa, there are very few places in the world where populations are rising; the Middle East, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, and a couple of scattered spots. Italy is in a prolonged crisis due to a dropping population; Japan and South Korea are seeing birth rates around half the replacement rates for more than a generation.
PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH POPULATION AGING
The changing shape of the developed world is clearly shown by the UN population data. This trend will have an increasing impact on global economic growth, savings and investments, consumption, workforces, pension schemes, and taxes. The healthcare system and social services will also feel the burden as family life, living conditions, housing, and migration trends change. But today the number of people in their 60s has nearly tripled. An aging population brings a lot of good and exciting things but it’s expensive. The cost of pensions, the cost of healthcare is largely spent on people in their last years of life. When people retire in their 60s they tend to spend less, give less taxes and cost society more. A shrinking workforce can cause GDP growth which will threaten economic stagnation.
HOW POPULATION AGING WILL AFFECT THE FUTURE?
This aging can hurt the economy as in the future there will be more younger and older people to be looked after by the working age. Countries with the highest chances of economic growth may be those with the youngest populations.
It will be a major problem 20-30 years from now as the social security systems will fail. The active working population won’t just be enough to support the retired ones unless there is a brutal increase in social taxes or companies change the way they look at older workers and start retaining them. This is not something to take “lightly” since the increase in life expectancy parallel to the low fertility levels will translate into an enormous amount of persons not working, thus not generating tax incomes or social contributions: on the contrary, the number of pensions being paid will increase largely.
In the future, office-based jobs, etc will have to be freed up to provide more jobs that the elderly can carry on despite advancing years. The youth of society will be allocated manual labor, regardless of their ability to work in more intellectual fields.
IS IT A GLOBAL PROBLEM?
Populations are expected to age at a faster pace in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. A recent survey suggests that Japan is more worried about population aging. Around 87% of the people think that this is a major problem whereas in the US only 26% of the people are concerned about population aging. There have been different views from different countries about who should take care of the elderly. Some think the older people can take care of themselves, whereas some think that the government should be responsible for looking after the old people. But in countries like India and Pakistan old people are looked at by their family members. In a country like India proportion of the elderly do not avail the benefits of existing policies either due to lack of education and information or due to physical inability that often makes them the victim of abuse and crime. Poorer countries without the means to prepare will experience a significant change as the world struggles to support the elderly without imposing a stifling burden on the young.
CONCLUSION
If the gap between the young and the old increases, countries may face struggles to fill their workforce and that could affect the country’s economic growth in the long term as it also adds burden on the state to take care of the elderly population.
- Population aging is a vicious cycle: people grow old, retire and companies want more younger people to join the workforce. Then these companies invite immigrants. When these younger people grow old, there will be larger shoes to fill in. It’s never-ending