What happens when the baby boomers die?

[LargeSquareRock]

Sorry about the title, but that’s literally it. I’ve wondered this since I was a child.

Obviously we are about to enter a 20 year spike when a smaller number of tax payers support a higher number of elderly people in healthcare and elder care.

What happens in 20 years when the spike is over? Do we have empty care homes, plentiful housing and easily available health care?

I really have no evil agenda asking this- demographics has always fascinated me.

ditch NI in favour of stealth increases in income tax and personally I'm all in favour
As a "baby boomer" I had advocated for this for a long time. Call it a health / care tax if you like, for over pension age. Better still merge NI and Tax altogether.
It would be a "difficult" decision as Starmer says.

Time to stop thinking about migrants as only menial workers. Many are getting onto boats to have an opportunity at our Universities. Admission at home will be blocked to many who are from the 'other' tribe or support the 'wrong' political party. Medicine, Chemistry, Engineering, we, the locals are being left behind, we find the competition very stiff.
This is why we need to work harder to improve our schools and the quality of teaching.

I am a baby boomer.

You do realise that we aren’t even at retirement age yet?

Its a whole generation though so some are definitely older than you…

As a "baby boomer" I had advocated for this for a long time. Call it a health / care tax if you like, for over pension age. Better still merge NI and Tax altogether.It would be a "difficult" decision as Starmer says.

Agree

Oh really? I was under the impression there was a significant female surplus in the silent generation due to the wars.

Since writing that I looked it up on wikipedia, and it seems that WW1 did have an impact, but less than I assumed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_women

@LargeSquareRock there will always be those who have and those who don't. Not everyone has a high paying career, buys a house, goes to Uni. Plenty of the boomer years generation aren't sitting on a fortune. MN has a big middle class following which doesn't accurately reflect the finances of a whole generation

It's not difficult if you do it the way Hunt was doing it by gradually abolishing it and letting inflation erode income tax bands to make up for it. Obviously if Reeves carried on the same policy the papers who previously said "Hurrah for a National Insurance Cut" would suddenly see the light and say "Reeves attacks pensioners and savers!" But I think she'd still get away with it.

Let’s be realistic. Most baby boomers are of retirement age, Stating this is not an insult to baby boomers, who contribute huge amounts to society after retirement age. And if you are not of retirement age in 2024, you will be soon.

Just wait until you're 69 and you just might have a change of heart.
Years ago my FIL was pro euthanasia at 60, but lo and behold changed his mind in his 50s and then wanted to live as long as possible.

Baby boomers?
Nah.
A so called Silent Generation becoming silent forever, at least in my country, that should
make a difference.
Bastards.

Err no, we are all expected to live longer. The current generation will largely consist of centenarions. Noone said they'd be healthy and full of beans passed 75yo...

I've read articles that just a 1-2% per year drop in house prices - but with immigration keeping the UK population growing - personally I'm dubious.

I've read many USA article about how much gen x will inherit soon which ignore medical and care costs which will be a massive issue there and their over 50s are biggest increase in homeless population. Also seen articles moaning they aren't leaving their houses - house they've paid for and are living in - as some economist predicted so no big influx of housing coming onto market - plus they have corporate america hovering up properties for rental and jacking rental prices up. They are similar to Japan in that they have some form of property tax and older houses are often worth very little so inheriting house can be a burden. Should be les an issue in UK - but shows how little joined up thinking can go into predictions.

Big issue is replacement level been below 2.1 for nearly 50 years - so it's not a one shot thing. The big issue is worker to dependent ratio - dependent are kids and old people so increasing kids now make the ratio worse as well.

So need more workers - increasingly raising retirement age, immigration and probably reducing state costs as government have less money to spend and more debt to cover.

Italy and Japan and much further along this whole process - so we can watch and learn what works from them.

I wouldn't worry too much OP, they cottoned on to the issue by the late 50s and gave us implants in the palms of our hands which start glowing when we hit 80, so they can track us down. It used to be 30 but they decided we'd be easier to catch on zimmer frames.

(For the benefit of my fellow ancients)

But even centurions die, at an exponential rate.

You're in Australia, OP - surely some of this isn't applicable, and there are different impacts?
What are the main problems in Australia?

I thought post covid and cost of living life expectancy had actually stalled or fallen in the UK.

Plus living longer is one thing - living well into later years is slightly different thing. If you care for increasing numbers living with dementia or needing a lot of medical support that's going to increase their care needs and costs.

And some are younger

Baby boomers dying will have a profound social impact, but it’s difficult to say exactly what that will be because it won’t happen in isolation. It will happen alongside the advent of AI, growing climate emergency and the titling of global power away from the West. And that’s before we look at unpredictable shock events, like pandemics and war.

However, as a starter for ten, I think the impact will be diffused over a couple of decades, so chronic rather than acute. There will be a significant transfer of wealth to millennials, who will probably have moral angst about whether to hoard it or pass it down based on their own generation’s experience (and because millennials love nothing more than a bit of angst). The gap between those who inherit and those who don’t will breed more social inequity, and this will play out along class, race and north/south fault lines. Any chance of more availability in the housing market will be offset by building fewer houses, because it is not in the short term interests of business or government for house prices to fall. Culturally, we will lose some skills in crafts, trades, traditional recipes etc, unless we make an effort to preserve them. Politically, parties that have courted boomers and fanned the flames of the culture wars will have to reinvent to find new audiences (which is perfectly possible - lots of far right in Gen Z in Europe, for instance).

I'm a final boomer year... 1964. I have seven years to go (as of currently) before my pension is due.

Seven years isn't that "soon".

I know quite a few Silent Generation who pay tax and who basically passed their fuel allowance onto charities. When they die their grandchildren are going to get a bit cash injection

I'm not OP but it's quite similar.

Population contraction, the tax of future generations not being enough to support the current one, tightly held and overpriced housing market, public health a mess.

A big difference is that Australia's wealth is deeply dependent on the extraction of fossil fuels, which can't last forever, and that our government has used immigration as even more of a blunt tool to manage the economy than has the UKs.

DH & I ( pensioners ) pay all our state pension, lower than £11.5 back in tax, plus more.We did not inherit wealth, worked long hours and made sacrifices (as did many ). We have also paid NI throughout our working lives.
We have fortunately been able to give our DCs a helping hand now and again and hopefully will fully fund our own care should we need to.
Some older people are not so fortunate and the bitterness against them is disgraceful.

Exactly the same as the UK- an unprecedented glut of older people being supported by a smaller tax base. Immigration mitigates this somewhat. I’m assume this is the case in the UK too. So if an increasing amount of the tax pie is being funnelled to elder health and living care, what happens when this glut is no longer?

I am bewildered as to why this demographic question is so upsetting to people. We will all die. I will die. My generation X will die. There will be fewer deaths than the baby boomers because we are a smaller generation. My beautiful children will die, hopefully after long and fulfilling lives. It’s not personal. It’s just a question about how society has been geared for decades to manage this spike. What happens after the spike?

Italy and Japan and much further along this whole process - so we can watch and learn what works from them.

Japan has done some planning for it though so we can’t emulate Japan.

I find health forecasting really interesting. I suspect we will see less people being cared for by family members which in itself would put more pressure on the state.
However those born really from 1960 have benefited from better nutrition, health education etc and smoking rates are down so many more would age healthier possibly needing less support to stay independent.
The rise of HRT, added calcium should mean less crippling osteoporosis meaning less (women) falling and fractured hips. In my experience this often marks the end of independence.
However, put the positives against a rise in Type 2 diabetes and obesity and we will see more needing support that way. Already we have more people coming in who need bariatric equipment and higher numbers of staff to care for them.
Housing- I suspect the prices will eventually come down allowing more first time buyers to enter the market.