Who’s going to pay our pensions in 20-30years if the UK keeps its birth rate low and also restricts immigration?

[AlertEagle]

posted from another forum
Serious question. The UK’s birth rate is well below replacement level, meaning fewer young people entering the workforce. At the same time, the political mood seems pretty anti-immigration, even though immigration is one of the only things that’s kept the tax base stable.

State pensions are paid by current workers’ National Insurance contributions, not some magic fund. So… what happens when there’s a huge retired population and not enough working-age people to support them?

Will the government raise taxes, increase the retirement age, cut pensions, or eventually U-turn on immigration just to prop things up?

Feels like a ticking time bomb no one’s really addressing. Curious what others think, is anyone actually planning for this?

Or are we as a nation willing to give up state pensions if it means less immigration?

But if people do not want / are not able to have kids they should not have them. Individuals
should not put themselves at physical,
emotional, mental, financial disadvantage by having children they do not want.

Harder to do when younger if you want them to have kids and fund that as well and keep house prices high for the current owners, and pay increasing tax because there is other things to pay for as well as pensions

hence lower birth rat people just can’t afford it during their younger fertile years - it’s the one expense you can control - to have a dependant or not

Agreed and it becomes a ponzi scheme - we need more and more and more people. We need to complete reinvent out relationships to and expectations from the state.

Yeah, I agree with this. I think the only thing to do will be as a society rework the entire structure. I'm not suggesting I have the answers, it just literally won't be able to continue in the way it has. Anything that works only on exponential growth is destined to collapse eventually because it's simply not sustainable.

I think one of the greater problems we are going to face is pensions that can't support the retiree's. As another poster mentioned, with so many unable to afford to buy houses, the elderly will be competing with young people for rentals which are already in short supply. And possibly be unable to fund it on pension alone, it simply won't be enough. We can't turn even more housing into over 55s etc because there's already a massive shortage for young people and families, if younge people can't find stable accomodation even those that might want or consider having children are going to find it much more difficult. Further exacerbating the issue.

Older people suggesting younger people have more babies is just rude

if you want a longer wealthy retirement pay for it
cheaper than a child

if you want a child you have to pay for them

older people who haven’t saved for themselves expecting younger people to fund babies so they can retire earlier is so very selfish

We may need to adopt the Australian model where paying into a private pension becomes mandatory.

And fewer babies
lower house prices because mortgages will take into account these payments

Plus, it's nigh on impossible to get a decent job once you're over the age of 50.

I'm not sure this is true. It might be difficult for some but probably depends on which sector you work in. I've changed jobs twice in my 50s, both times for a better salary etc. I know others in their 50s that have changed jobs as well. I specifically chose my current job because the pension is good. So I dont think it's nigh on impossible to get a decent job in your 50s.

Save for your own and stop useless governments taxing it

and most people are not anti immigration/ they are anti mass uncontrolled immigration , and illegal
immigratuon from cultures not compatible with ours. Most sane people acknowledge reasonable, measured immigration at sensible levels ( not hundreds of thousands a years )

And I know loads of people moving jobs in their 50s

I think that's the idea. Not great for a manifesto though so none of them will admit it. If state pensions are actually stopped or means tested there are a lot of people going to protest, the waspi women will look like a teddy bear's picnic in comparison. If the understood agreement is that you pay for current pensioners during your working life and then qualify for a pension yourself when you are older, people who paid into the system but get no pension at the end will not be happy. Politicians are hoping our apathy as a nation will triumph.

Raise pension age •

it's already 68 despite no increase in healthy life expectancy

The issue with further penalising the young simply because they are young is that they they ones with means will just go to other countries. Much of the west will want to attract talented young people.

People are also living longer and are more "fit" later into life because of health care

healthy life expectancy hasn't changed

It’s already incentivised through tax relief - still doesn’t seem to make much of a difference

The majority don't have enough spare to stuff loads into their pension.

Ticking timebomb unless someone makes some difficult decision soon

The ageing population is already impacting the economy.

It will clearly be the case that out of work benefits will be less and that fewer people will be assessed to be in need of them.

Quite a large % of the economically inactive are between 50 and pension age and it's due to ill health.

It's certainly true that the relatively large boomer generation has brought the problem to the fore, but if the birth rate continues to stay below replacement it's not going to go away just because the boomers eventually die off. If anything the ratio of the working age population to retirees is going to continue to decline for many decades. People like to pretend that the problem can be solved in large part by bashing 'scroungers' but really, the state pension makes up such a large portion of the welfare budget that it would barely touch the sides. The problem needs to be solved by some combination of a rise in the state pension age, an inching up of auto-enrolment contributions, at some point ending the triple lock and/or the WFA, tax rises, and the state becoming a lot more nannyish regarding people's health. The trouble is, when much of the demos' political, demographic and economic thinking is about as sophisticated as that of Kevin and Perry it's impossible to sell that to the electorate, so it'll be kicked down the road again and again.

You're all forgetting one thing - Immigrants also age.

But we need workers, we already have more over 65 yr olds than under 15 yr olds.

it will be interesting to see what happens to healthcare & whether they will prioritise by age.

Exactly it “solves” one problem and creates another

And that is exactly your answer.
You either provide your own pension or you end up on sickness benefits. No private pension fund, no early retirement.

The country can't afford the level of benefits it provides.

We desperately need a different economic framework but the validity of that change is dependent on the global markets....

@girljulian in the 60s we have 5 workers to 1 worker, it's 3:1 now & not far off 2:1. That's the issue. A smaller population is good but not an older one.

Also pension schemes are often pretty rubbish now compared to current pensioners.