In 4 years, 2029, UK deaths will exceed births!

[TheMintCritic]

Just came across this and thought it was wild… according to the ONS, by 2029 the number of deaths in the UK is expected to outnumber the number of births for the first time in decades.

• Our fertility rate is only about 1.5 kids per woman, well below replacement.
• Meanwhile, the population is ageing — all those baby boomers are moving into their 70s and 80s.
• The result? The natural population growth turns negative, meaning any population increase will rely entirely on immigration.

It’s crazy to think that in just 4 years, births won’t even keep up with deaths. Makes you wonder what that’ll mean for schools, NHS, pensions, and housing.

There are plenty of people not working at all or working very few hours so we really don't need your worst case scenario of everyone working 100 hours per week until they drop dead! There is a middle of the road option. Too many people aren't working at all, too many people are only working part time, too many people are only working 30 years yet expecting decent pensions for 30-40 years. The sums just don't add up. We can't keep importing more people, many of whom won't be working much, if at all, to prop up the ponzi scheme.

What is the alternative? We can't keep increasing the population ad infinitum. At some point in the future we run out of space, and resources, and people start to starve and there is civil war. Keeping things going the way they are simply kicking the can down the road for a future generation to deal with.

Or maybe we need a system in the UK where people can afford to have children rather than importing people from third world nations. People from misogynistic cultures where women are often not even allowed to learn the language.

The middle classes are taxed to the high heaven to support those on benefits, a huge number of whom are migrants who will never (officially) work or contribute to the economy in a meaningful way.

Add the fact that our most vulnerable people (those with dementia and other high care needs) are being “cared” for by people who would not be given a job stacking shelves in Tesco but are paying £££s for the privilege.

The UK really is fekked.

I don't think anyone is arguing that the population should increase and increase. The point is that there is about to be a massive falloff in population, meaning there are far more older people than younger and that is a huge problem, regardless of your views on population size.

This is such a strange viewpoint. I have two children and while I definitely hope with all my heart that they outlive me, I don't care if they outearn me. No one has ever had a guarantee that their children would outlive or outearn them - I've never heard people use these two factors as the main deciders in whether to have children or not.

Letting people starve to death isn't a good way to solve a population crisis.

There are many vacancies in the elderly care sector right now. Nobody wants to do those jobs, they are backbreaking, low paid, long shifts and you are expected to put up with some behaviours that are borderline, not even borderline sometimes, illegal.

This won’t change until care work is desired career, with experience bands, career progression, decent pay, working conditions and pension.

Even now there is an increasing two tier level of care, that which your local council provides and self- funding. Even Farage has had his shell like whispered into by his care home owner mates and has suggested a care worker visa.

So very few, certainly very few decent, care workers will be available if you are unable to self-fund, which many families if you have don’t want you to do because they want your money when you are dead, but also don’t want to care for you either.

So who will look after us in old age? Depends how much cash or loving family you have. If you have neither you are at the luck and mercy of your local authority. Otherwise you pay for a nice care home. Or your family cover your needs between them.

No one is getting 5-star treatment on the state.

I think it’s prudent to future proof you house, put in a downstairs shower, look at sloping steps, will a stair lift fit. If you want to remain at home, which will be the best option. Things are easier in that respect, you can get prescriptions, groceries, everything really delivered, you can pay bills and bank online.

It’s not letting people starve to death. If somebody refuses to work the result of that is on them.

This has been expected. What I can’t understand is why we’re building on green belt land to house a population that may not be there in 50 years time.

I'm really pleased for you that your life has been so good that you can't imagine a situation where you fall on hard times and can't support yourself. I hope you realise what a lucky thing that is, but it's worth remembering that your luck may not continue. It's also good to exercise your imagination sometimes as it usually leads people to have more nuanced, realistic and empathetic responses.

In terms of managing elderly care, I think we seriously need to get a handle on what good end of life looks like. Wouldn’t people prefer to die naturally in their 70/80s than live into their aged life in poor health in care homes?

If we continue to prioritise life length rather health length, then we’ll continue to have the problem of too many elderly people to care for.

That, or children start looking after their elderly parents more.

“Can’t” and “won’t” are different words with different meanings.

Yes they are. And yet a person who has lived in the world for more than a decade will realise that the difference between the two isn't always obvious and they will also know that distinguishing between the two isn't easy. If you have a blanket policy that people who don't work don't get support then people will die, that's just a logical conclusion. You could propose a situation where people have to go through a rigorous process to definitively prove they can't work but that would cost so much that it would probably be cheaper to just give them the money. To my mind, any policy that results in a person starving to death - and there have been documented cases where stopped benefits have resulting in people becoming emaciated and dying with entirely empty stomachs - is a policy I can't be in favour of.

To me, being bitter about people getting benefits in a world where millionaires exploit everyone around them doesn't make sense.

“If you have a blanket policy that people who don't work don't get support ”

Good job I didn’t say that then isn’t it.

The benefit system already has this in place in the form of sanctions.

We’re over populated though - according to reform- full up, no room! Perhaps the housing crisis will be resolved…

We should be ashamed of the way we farm our elderly people out as if they’re no longer the responsibility of the families they raised.

People go into care homes when their care needs can not be met at home.
My grandmother went into a care home when her dementia became too much to deal with. She needed 24/7 care.

Why would they starve to death? All they need to do is go and get a job, like the other tens of millions who have to go out to work to pay taxes to fund their lazy lifestyle. (Not meaning genuinely disabled of course!).

Difficult to care for elderly relatives when you live hundreds of miles away for work because there are no jobs in the regions where your elderly relatives live!

Also, lots of people have complex care needs that family simply can't cope with, such as those with dementia.

There are 2.6 job seekers to every vacancy right now. Some of those jobs will be zero hour ones that you could not survive on anyway.

My best friend's DM has dementia. One of her sons moved in with her, and she still ended up needing a care home. He could only care for her properly if he didn't work, and never slept. He needed to do both.

The govt should be creating jobs, or at least putting barriers to make imports more expensive, thus creating jobs in the UK for making stuff we subcontract to be made in the far east etc. As it is, the current govt are actively causing unemployment due to their policies - the opposite of what is needed. Where are the modern equivalent of the JTS/YTS/ETS schemes of the 80s to enourage firms to take on more staff? Where are the grants/incentives to encourage firms to grow? Where are the policies to rejuvenate all the run down regions? It's insane to be paying billions to people to sit on their arses when the govt could be paying substantially less to businesses to help them grow, take on more staff, etc. Where are the incentives to encourage people to start their own businesses - again in the 80s there were schemes which paid a weekly sum for people to become self employed for a specific period of time to help tide them over the inevitable "slow burn" until they got established. Now it's as if the govt actively hate businesses, especially small businesses and the self employed. The statistics show that small businesses employ more people than the big businesses yet they're constantly overlooked and penalised by successive governments.

I think cracking down hard on certain business sectors (I have in mind Turkish barber shops) would help. We passed time counting them as we passed through a small SW city on Friday early evening. There were 14 in under 500 metres of a small city. Not one had a customer in a chair. So their business is probably not legitimate.

It does get my goat a bit, because we are helping our DC buy a very small property. He has been asked for proof of the source of his means to pay, which is understandable, but as we are the source for some of his money, we also need to demonstrate that we came by the money legitimately. We can, of course, but the whole process is wasted when a single suburban high street is filled with 14 barber shops, which very obviously are not doing sufficient business to pay their overheads. I would like to see barbers and nail bars harassed out of the country.