Can we talk about ageing populations?

[Kendodd]

Birth rates around the world are collapsing. South Korea has the lowest birth rate at about 0.7. That means for every 100 people, 35 children will be born. There are predicted to be more people over 65 than under very soon. Many countries are predicted to see their populations half be 2100. While I think this is great for the planet and wouldn't want to change things, it will present problems.

What to do?

There's already a crisis of recruitment in care. Throwing more money at it won't work, we need people to do other jobs as well. Limiting care/health care to the elderly, I can't see how that would work either. Also, most of these countries are democracies, the elderly would be the most powerful voting block.

Anyone any ideas?

The problem I have is that it’s a narrow set of circumstances now - and this debate always brings up the very tragic cases where people are suffering which anybody with a heart would be sympathetic about.

But there can be a slippery slope and a mission creep. Abortion was legalised on the basis that it would prevent women suffering the terrible consequences of illegal abortions. After legalisation it morphed into a “right to choose” question - and we have had more and more abortions ever since. Now you may agree with this, but this wasn’t the original basis of the debate.

We are pointing out the difficult cases of people suffering with terminal illnesses now. But if you say it’s ok it will become a “right” of everyone - even healthy people who aren’t particularly old. I don’t think it’s inhumane to be concerned about this.

Existing adults need to prolong their healthy lives as much as possible which means exercising a lot more, cutting out upfs, losing weight, moving to a much more vegetable-based diet.

Make dignitas-type services more widely accepted so people who have little quality of life can make an informed choice about ending their own lives.

And make it less expensive to raise children.

Agree with all these answers. Also, invest in maternity services. There's a growing number of 'one and done' women who had traumatic experiences when giving birth and who were treated horribly. A good place to start is there.

Yes, but we don't earn enough, and require too much support to do what others do without it. Read the recent thread on PIP for an idea of how things are seen when it comes to support for disabled people.

I don’t agree. Who decides when ‘old’ is? Who decides the cut off point for medications? Many elderly people live a long and useful old age, volunteering their time in the community, looking after grandchildren, giving pleasure to their families, contributing in many ways. I have a family member who is volunteering in his 90s.

I agree with the PP that we have to accept higher immigration rates for young people to come into our country and contribute to the economy. I also agree that more consideration should be given to people who don’t want to continue taking medications but I’m on the fence about assisted dying because of threads like this. I believe there will be coercion but also guilt of the elderly and they will agree to something they don’t really want. What is happening in Canada is nothing short of a scandal.

It matters less if you have a healthy older population so we really need to tackle the health of the next round of old people - obesity and poor diets must be tackled ; lack of exercise must be tackled ; housing conditions must be tackled

We could encourage people to work longer if we make work attractive rather than a tedious drag you down thing that people do to survive

And of course if they were healthier they might be able to work more

NICE already make those tough choices based largely on a metric of treatment cost per expected quality-adjusted life year, which looks at how likely you are to survive and how long for and what kind of life you will have. There are people who don't get their cancer treated. You occasionally hear of them in press stories where they have sold the house and crowdfunded to go abroad for a last-ditch attempt at treatment that the NHS won't fund.

In the US, you get treated if and only if you can afford to pay for it. At least here it's not based on means.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that we have a cut off point at say 85, and that's it, medical treatment is stopped. It's saying that an individual should decide what they want to do - having an option if they want to end their lives so they don't prolong their suffering.

Those countries which have high birth rates will see decreasing birth rates as they modernize i.e the same processes that have happened to create the demographic problems in other countries.
Also all the countries lacking young people will be competing for immigrants from countries who have lots of young people, the price of this cheap labor will go up.

Having seen a close relative die I certainly don't want the same for me.
She was offered things she did actually refuse. But legally they had ti be offered.
We'll pass the point of no return though by then.

We already have astonishing levels of immigration now. Net migration is at record levels.

High levels of immigration can actually compound the problem, as cheap foreign labour in an incentive for employers not to employ domestic workers. Successive governments have also been at fault for not creating a proper domestic labour strategy.

If we use immigration to fill the gaps, it won’t actually solve the problem as we will have to keep immigration at very high levels, which won’t be sustainable, lead to overpopulation and cause breakdowns in community relations. It’s not a panacea.

I always thought that the film Soylent Green was meant as a warning!

I'm disabled and have a job and Access To Work grant.

Asthma is a disability if it's severe enough. So can migraine be, so can diabetes. All these conditions can be controlled to at least some extent, giving excellent quality of life for decades.

Even non-working disabled people can have a decent quality of life for a long time. Treating a disabled person who can go out with support isn't the same as treating a very elderly stroke victim who is bed-bound, hemiplegic, and will be dead within the year.

We don't need to find ways to encourage women to have more children. The world is over populated. There will be a period of time when we have a large aged population and not enough working age people to easily pay for them but once those generations have passed we will be back to a more sustainable number of working age vs elderly.

I think we are missing a massive environmental benefit of reducing birth rates.

Rising world population is strongly correlated to rising CO2 levels and rising CO2 levels are strongly correlated to rising global temperatures.

Or in short less people means less environmental damage.


So do children?!!!

A lot of disabled people were treated this badly during COVID and it's not acceptable.

When I'm talking about letting old people die, I'm applying what I call "the dog test": if this was your elderly dog instead of your grandma, would you have her euthanised on humane grounds?

We live in a country where we euthanise animals on humane grounds but try to keep comparably old and hopelessly-ill humans alive. It's cruel. You can believe that and at the same time believe that disabled people shouldn't be written off for being disabled. There are dogs with three legs, one eye, etc that have good lives.

You don't think there's a risk of population collapse?

I totally agree @fourelementary and other PPs who already agreed. Just ask around, 100% of people I know say they wish to never be left in a half life state that many elderly are maintained in. I'm guessing those elderly people said the same thing 20 years ago yet there they are. If there was something I could authorise now to make sure it doesn't happen to me I would.

Personally I think the big pharma companies have a lot to answer for here. There is no morality in the industry, just profit margins. So it has to be up to policy makers to change things.

Also with a reducing population, many jobs will become obsolete but openings will remain in the care industry so it might level out as long as people get paid a fair wage.

Nail on the head. 100% agree with all that.

Especially the bit about making work more attractive/enjoyable/worthwhile. Far too many people have left the workforce, either because they could afford to (inheritances, gold plated public sector pension schemes, etc), and far too many people have left the workforce due to ill health preventing them from doing their previous jobs and little to nothing available for retraining in something different, and of course, giving up work due to poor working conditions (NHS, teaching, etc).

We need more people in work and working more. People being healthier generally will help reduce the number who have to retire earlier due to ill health and also give them more opportunities for doing something useful to society when they retire such as voluntary work. We need serious blitz on unhealthy living, i.e. unhealthy foods, sedentary lifestyles, continued work to reduce tobacco/alcohol/drug issues, etc.

Taking the lazy option of more immigrants is not the long term answer as they'll get old too, and will also put additional strain on education, NHS, housing, etc. We need a long term strategy to deal with the crisis, not just lazily getting more people to prop up the ponzi scheme that WILL inevitably collapse at some point - ponzi schemes always do!

People need to become more realistic about old age and Drs need to stop prescribing medication and treating conditions that are part and parcel of old age and allow people to actually die instead of fighting to keep them alive in disgusting cruel circumstances for an extra few years of life. Or in pain and confusion. Just because we CAN medicate and treat doesn’t mean we SHOULD.
I would support assisted dying for sure as well.

Couldnt agree more with this! I’ve met lots of very elderly ill people via my job and so many of them are in constant unrelenting pain, doubly incontinent, bed bound, lonely, depressed and have no dignity left at all. Why are we so desperate to keep them alive when their quality of life is so appalling? It’s cruel

State euthanasia

Yes, but the demographics are completely different. Continuous immigration will lead to significant population rises, and it doesn’t solve the problem of an ageing society unless you keep the levels very high.

Why not? It's just a conversation and one that has been had multiple times....

I don’t agree. Who decides when ‘old’ is? Who decides the cut off point for medications? Many elderly people live a long and useful old age, volunteering their time in the community, looking after grandchildren, giving pleasure to their families, contributing in many ways. I have a family member who is volunteering in his 90s.

It's not about old as such! It's about being old and having no life. Your family member is not what anyone is talking about.

We are talking about people who are not only old but are suffering from conditions related to their age yes but also are making them unable to recognise their loved ones, maybe not be able to speak or hear, be bedbound, doubly incontinent, feeling sad, terrified, confused all the time. Just all sorts of torture. It is uncaring to keep people in that state surely??