Can we talk about the aging population?

[Kendodd]

Anyone know much?
I don't see much serious discussion in politics about this and the challenges it will create. Policy just seems to be more of the same ignoring the fact society will fundamentally change and lots of the numbers just won't add up anymore (elder care, healthcare etc) Having said that I think we are quite well placed in the UK to cope being open to immigration from higher birthrate countries. Plus we will have a heads up watching how low birthrate and low immigration countries in Asia cope and what they do right or wrong.

Overall, I think, lower numbers of people are good for the planet, if predictions are even correct, people across the world might decide to just start birthing their own care workers though and upend the current trajectory. Anyway I don't think we should continue to ignore it's challenges.

I love preventative medicine but please remember that tte biggest detriment of health is socio economic.If we want people to live healthier lives fir longer, what we need to tackle is poverty first.

Absolutely

Absolutely.

On the children thing. In countries where childcare is readily available and cheap, flexible working hours are the norm and parental leave is both long and well paid, birth rates are still low. It’s only really the last 50-60 years in the global north that parenthood has been a choice within a marriage/relationship, so really this is the first time in human history that parenthood has been controlled.

Where we now live childcare is about £130 a month for the first child and about £80 for the second, parental leave is very generous in both time and pay, part time/flexible working is completely normal for parents. School holiday childcare is readily available and cheap. There is still a low birth rate, as money, childcare etc will only help those who actually want to be parents. Someone on a low income who doesn’t want children still won’t have them.

Simon's right. If you bribe people with big tax breaks for parents and /or subsidised childcare and build a society which is friendly to childrearing and in which men do their fair share then you will raise the birth rate a bit by enabling every woman who wants children to have them.

But at the same time if you've given women completely free choice and a decent education then a large number will decide they don't want to have children at all, and no amount of carrots will persuade them otherwise.

IMO money has hugely affected the decision to have children and how many to have. If we look at countries where people are still having lots of children, money flows up the generations there. You have kids, they grow up, get work and give a percentage of their money to their mum. So the more kids you have, the more money you get, this is your pension. It's also a driver of migration as people feel pressure to provide for parents. It was like that here until quite recently (hence large families) in working class communities, you give some of your wages to your mum, whether you lived with her or not.

In much of the world this flow of money up the generations has reversed and it now flows down the generations. My children, will cost me a fortune, and (unless they should win 100 million lottery or something near impossible like that) there is no chance they will give me any of their money and it would be humiliating for me if they did. I should be able to provide for them, not the other way around. This is the culture in much of the world now. This is one reason birth rates have collapsed. We're a mercenary lot and money is king.

There is a perception that the majority of elderly people are in need of care. This is not at all true. Some statistics: Approximately 418,000 people live in care homes. This is 4% of the total population aged 65 years and over, rising to 15% of those aged 85 or more. In other words, 96% of over 65s are NOT in care homes, and 85% of those aged over 85 are NOT in care homes. Some might be receiving care at home, but the majority are living 'normal' lives on relatively low incomes. Many, many people in their 70s and 80s are living productive lives, volunteering for charities and helping out with childcare for grandchildren. As for the Morrocan MIL caring for her elderly relative, that only works if the middle-aged women (always women) who care for their relatives are not in employment. Most middle-aged women have jobs that they cannot afford to give up.

You're not going to encourage people who don't want children to have them. But there are plenty of people with one or two children who might like one or two more if conditions were favourable. Which is the exact opposite of current government policies with their restrictions of top up benefits to two children only.

TBH I don't think encouraging more births is the way forward anyway. Ultimately fewer people on the planet is a good thing even if it means hard choices in the meantime.

In pretty much every video I have seen of migrants arriving, 90% have been young men.

It baffles me when I hear people say we need more babies. We are living through a catastrophic explosion in the world's population. In 1900, there were just over a billion humans. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. It's now eight billion and heading for ten. I know the birth rate is dropping, but it's dropping from a massive height. And it isn't dropping everywhere. In Africa, the birth rate is still booming. In fact, the African population is going to double by 2050. Also, lifespans are increasing. In other words, people aren't dying and making room.

How can anyone say we need more babies when the world's population is eight times bigger than in 1900 and we're heading for climate meltdown??!!!

It's not stupid for the first world for governments to want the population to have children at a replacement rate, but educated women (even those who are only literate, not necessarily graduates) can see the trade-offs that are required. And increasingly their decision is not to. Personally, I got to 42, before I decided a child would be manageable. I am very glad I did it, but it killed my career which depended on complete flexibility and that stopped it being an option. DH's business, which is now our sole source of income, was in its infancy and could not have sustained us all, then.

@Rummikub while I appreciate your reservations and share them at a societal level, the very elderly people I have known who were left alone after outliving their partner and most of their friends, were keener to depart than their younger relatives were to lose them. My very Christian DMIL was miserable without DFIL, and longed to be reunited. She hated the 12 years after his death, and she also hated losing her ability to drive and decide, and her declining health. But she lost her faculties to dementia, and could not exercise the choices she had expressed in her LPOA.

I do understand your pov too. I just would be concerned about abuse.

I would also fear abuse, but as DH and I and most of our friends have had or are having to exercise our powers of attorney in the here and now -mostly for parents, but in sad cases for our partners - the instances where it's abused seem fairly rare. That said, fingers crossed.

Absolutely what?
2 pictures which are very unclear are supposed to be showing what?
Less than a quarter of immigrants are asylum seekers anyway.

Where are you getting your statistics from? Please provide data for your claims.

House of Commons library. I shared this before, incidentally. Didn’t you look? Don’t you want to know actual facts?

Yes, I found the percentage, but not the male/female percentages.

I don't know why you're being so unpleasant.

"Although the numbers of both female and male migrants have increased over time, women constitute a small majority of the UK’s migrant population. In 2019, about 53% of the foreign-born population were women or girls, according to APS data"

migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-an-overview/

Do you mean "Forced" euthanasia?

I agree with this poster. There’s a lot of hysteria around the ageing population, but if you sit down and think about it calmly, it is a minor and self-limiting problem.

I live in the far SW, in an area where we have a high proportion of elderly and very elderly in the population, and not all that many children.

it’s great! There are loads and LOADS of lunch clubs, coffee mornings, hobby societies in my town and the surrounding villages, all run by (and mostly frequented by) old people. They’re retired, they have the time to do the things that keeps a community ticking over.

My mum, in her early 80s, goes to a keep fit class run by a lady who’s in her 90s. There’s an elderly chap who lives opposite me who sits in his tiny front garden and chats to everyone that goes by. He’s more effective at preventing petty crime than a dozen police officers.

In our park, there are always a couple of old ladies chatting on park benches in the sunshine, which helps keep the wilder young kids in check, they chat with new mums and babies, and little kids. It’s little interactions like this that are really important for quality of life, not just GDP and economic productivity. Having loads of old people around makes for a decent, functioning community.

And to be honest, the “elderly care crisis” is also self-limiting. Without an army of carers, very old people won’t live to be 95 (in a care home, immobile and incontinent with zero quality of life) like they do now - without carers, life won’t be cruelly prolonged so often and more people will die of “old age” ailments shortly after reaching the end of their their healthy lifespan. I’d much prefer that when it’s my time.

This^

Thank you for pointing out the facts of 'oldies' lives. I live in an enclave of 1930s houses where I am one of the younger cohort at 76 - we are orderly and friendly and keep ourselves fit by gardening and walking the dog.

In my own family I know many of them lived to 80s/90 without needing a care home but admittedly they had to give up driving and some strenuous activities.

I had not realised how many other geriatrics of my demographic were carrying on living (many by themselves) without needing care in an institution.
A tough generation in fact.

It's not just about people in care homes though. I agree that a relatively small percentage of elderly people need residential care. It's about the growing number of people needing pensions and NHS healthcare, paid for by the taxes of a static or falling number of people at working age. Did you know that a man over 85 costs the NHS 7 times as much on average as a man in his 30s?

https://www.icaew.com/insights/insights-specials/the-future-of-tax-and-public-spending/more-people-are-living-longer-how-much-will-it-cost#:~:text=Research%20by%20the%20Nuffield%20Trust,for%20the%20late%2D30s%20cohort.

@PerfectMatch ? Of course most of us realise that - surely it's logical! It would be a shame if a man in his 30s needed the same amount of medical care as a man in his 80s!

I’d expect that too. 🤷🏽‍♀️