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?

Need to bring down living costs - housing, utilities, public transport etc. Then it's easier on pensioners and more working people can afford to pay into pension pots.

Also need to sort out the NHS if you want a healthier population. It's a fucking disgrace rn.

Maybe we should have incentivised Brits to have more children 20-30 years ago and invested in proper training schemes for essential occupations rather than rely on poaching all those bright young doctors and engineers from poverty stricken countries?

Isn’t it a government’s job to forecast and plan for what’s needed for the country?

They should have left it out of inheritance tax, it’s made me rethink my planning a bit.

I think this is the thinking that keeps birth rates low once they get to a certain point. Some people become acutely aware of how difficult life will be for their dc so stop at one because they want to provide a house deposit and leave them hundreds of thousands. Or some decide they won't have any because they don't want to invest all that into a dc. The gov can't incentivise on that scale.

The issue is that previously pensions were IHT exempt and now they’re not. It was a big influence in my planning, I have had to rethink things a bit. It erodes confidence in investing in a long term product such as pensions if the Government change the rules of the product during its duration. What else will they do?

Yet there arent many people who want to do the low skill jobs that most unskilled immigrants are doing. What do you propose for them?

Thus tiny demographic means nothing I’m afraid. Perhaps check out the stats across the whole country.

Experts. Numbers. All that hard stuff. You know, facts.

A family member died recently at 94. During his eulogy it was revealed he retired at 50. All us 40’s somethings raised our eyebrows - but it was probably quite normal for that generation. They were expecting to get to 60 something, but the NHS stepped in and they’ve survived strokes, heart attacks, cancer, stuff that killed previous generations.
I think the state pensions will be replaced by enforced contributions to private schemes eventually. And probably means tested within 10 years.

Isn’t it a government’s job to forecast and plan for what’s needed for the country?

It is but I don't think much of the population actually wants to acknowledge the ageing population & related issues. I mean Reform are selling "lower taxes, lower immigration & improved public services" and people seem keen to buy into that lie.

Experts. Numbers. All that hard stuff. You know, facts.

which illustrates my previous post

The Government taking 40% would not encourage me to have more children, the opposite really.

So he was born around 1930. No it wasn’t normal to retire at 50 in 1980. Far from it

Endless immigration especially unskilled or when they may need social housing and top up benefits

l built my pension fund singlehanded. As a freelance writer, a successful one on financial parameters (I earned £50K in 1999 for eight months work). My earnings dipped a lot (fell off the cliff) once I had a child..But we considered our options and 20 years on, the options are not bad. Time and patience really really is very important.

I agree. How much does an endless supply of deliveroo drivers actually add to the economy? I would have thought the state massively subsidises a lot of these people.

Endless immigration especially unskilled or when they may need social housing and top up benefits

Who is arguing for endless unskilled immigration?

It's not so much the overall number of people when it comes to paying for pensions but the age profile. As you can see from the image (which I took from here: commonslibrary.parliament.uk/the-uks-changing-population/) the proportion of retired people is increasing massively.

We have a conundrum. We need immigrants to come and work in our care homes and hospitals and pay our pensions, oh and pick our fruit, but we don't have endless space. Maybe the answer is we all need to learn to live in much smaller homes.

Yeah I can't get too excited about pensions being included in my estate for IHT purposes - it always seemed a bit of an anomaly that they weren't tbh. I'm fortunate enough to have built up a very healthy pension pot but the only vague planning I'm doing is around how to blow the lot before I die. If you're worrying about IHT your kids are already doing way betted than most.

I think this is right - the birth rate across the developed world is plummeting, it’s not just the UK.

Which tends to suggest it isn’t, for example, just down to the cost of childcare (although that definitely doesn’t help), because even countries with heavily subsidised childcare are seeing their fertility rates fall.

Many low skilled jobs could be automated or dispensed with altogether. We do not need thousands of fast food delivery cyclists. We can go and pick up our pizzas ourselves. We do not need people working 20 hours a week at the supermarket and claiming UC and housing benefit to top up their wages. Machines can do many of these jobs. But for some business owners it is cheaper to employ people than to invest in automation because it is the taxpayer who is subsidising.

Where the role is needed (eg care jobs) but low paid we can subsidise - although we might find that if that subsidy was added to the wage, existing residents would do those jobs.

A significant proportion of people currently immigrating to UK have no qualifications and in many cases no hope of acquiring any. They bring with them, or are followed by, family members who do not work but use up NHS resources. Their children are usually low achievers within the school system because they start school with no/poor English and never catch up. These children also become net recipients. Many form parallel communities - poor or no English - and then return “home” to find a marriage partner and the cycle repeats itself.

They are dding to the problem not alleviating it.

@dizzydizzydizzy except that people love having loads of stuff and aren't used to putting up with other people any more so they all want to live in huge houses on their own.

That’s all fine, but if all these older people are working til 70 plus… where do the young people get jobs? Surely we’d just end up with a lot of youth unemployment?

Lots of selfish ‘I’m all right Jack’ attitudes to this post.
Who wants to see a bricklayer still working at 70?
There are many things that need to be sorted, people aren’t having children because they can’t afford to buy property and have some security - sky high rent ( more than a mortgage would cost) is prohibitive.

How much more can you raise the pension age? People over 50 are already slower at learning new information, and after 60, some begin developing dementia and experiencing physical deterioration as well. Who would want to employ all these liabilities?

Maybe the answer is we all need to learn to live in much smaller homes.

Our homes are already smaller than in most developed countries. (And older and worse quality (damp etc)). They cost a lot of money but you don't get much for it, already. I don't think making it worse is the answer!