Mckinsey - Falling Birth Rates

[Untitled]

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-depopulation-confronting-the-consequences-of-a-new-demographic-reality
 

mckinsey have published a new report on how falling birth rates will affect advanced economies across the world

working age population is expected to decline over the next 25 years meaning that people in work will have to do so for longer in order to keep GDP and living standards growing... 

on present trends younger people today will inherit lower economic growth and higher living costs because of more retired people and fewer workers 

seems like we need to either promote higher fertility or start cutting retirement benefits or both if we want developed economies like the UK to have a better future. wouldn't you agree?

[Atheist]

Untitled. An aside about your writing style. I find it almost perfectly intelligible, but I'd suggest a double return after each sentence to make it clearer. (e.g. after "workers"and before "seems"

 

[Untitled]

i did put that atheist but i wrote it on a phone and so it seems not to have worked. oh well!

[davebro3]

more rubber boat people needed....

[tommy39]

make it profitable to work raise a family have an  affordable home instead of tax tax tax.all this was possible in the 60s/70s/,what happened??

[Deskdiary]

It seems to me, and by the way I'm far from an expert, if we want higher birth rates then make it affordable. I know of two younger couples who aren't having children because they can't afford it, despite being in reasonably well paid jobs.

 

Tax is far too high, rents are far too high, the combination of which is they can't scrape a house deposit together, and they don't want to have kids until they have a house they can call their own.

 

This isn't a party political issue - it's just too damn expensive out of a dwindling net of tax income.

 

The only way I can see my kids getting in the housing ladder is through my wife and I. I'd hate to be a kid now.

[dave50]

This gives an excuse for the all migrants welcome brigade to call for everyone to be allowed in, no matter what their cultural differences are. 

[douglas9401]

Cheap credit bred spivs who jacked the price of everything up because folk could get cheap credit and only cared if they could afford the next payment.

[Old_Geezer]

Meaning that people in work will have to do so for shorter, or the same, or unlikely but possibly longer, in order to keep GDP and living standards growing. Tech ensures things get easier over time. And in any case there is never 100% employment as there are insufficient job opportunities for all; so all that's needed is to find enough workers to cover the number of positions, as per usual.

 

So we don't need to produce more demand for resources and a larger amount of pollution to deal with by irresponsible breeding, as that only makes things worse, not better.

 

Neither do we have to abuse those who have done their bit and deserve to be allowed to pass their job opportunity on to someone younger (even though evil government has been doing that for many years now). In fact the retirement age should be reduced sufficiently such that most younger folk can get off of welfare and get the sense of pride that they are doing their bit for society.

 

Folk should stop pushing this misinformation that we are doomed if we don't doom ourselves by overpopulating the world further. They should be ensuring the young have got job opportunities, and prevent the abuse of older folk by not giving them sufficient pension, and/or forcing them to never be able to afford to retire.

[Untitled]

the retired population is dependent on the working age population in order to generate the money necessary for their pensions and healthcare etc old geezer... if the retired population increases and the working age population shrinks then the latter will need to generate more wealth for fewer rewards... technology isn't a magic wand that can just solve the issue for us. something has to give.

i agree with the comments above about cost of living and cost of housing. the main reason people don't start families is that it isn't viable even on decent salaries because housing is so expensive. 

[Hymie]

As dave50 points out, most of those who could come to our aid (from foreign lands) and solve this issue have the wrong colour skin for most ABers.

[davebro3]

it's not the skin that's the problem - it's what's inside it...

[Untitled]

We don't have to rely on immigration to solve this problem... if we made housing cheaper and generously funded higher education for in demand professions then more people would be able to start families and feel optimistic about their children's prospects

of course if we aren't willing to do those things then immigration is the only alternative left

[Hymie]

Back in around 1980, two of my friends became engaged and bought a 2 bed terraced house in east London for £25k - at the time they were both earning a salary similar to me, circa £6k.  Their combined gross salaries would have equalled around half the house price.

 

I just looked at a house price website; the last sale of a terrace house in that street was in 2022 for £485k – to be in a similar position to my friends (in 1980), today a young couple’s combined gross income would need to significantly exceed £200k.

[sandyRoe]

There are many living in the Third World who would be delight to come to countries with declining populations to work and prop up their economies.

[david small]

Better to die and decrease the surplus population. Die? Why that's the last thing I would do.

[Untitled]

we could also cut or freeze the state pension for a while... or perhaps means test it. this will of course provoke outrage from people who have paid NI contributions through their careers but the present situation is unsustainable

[ToraToraTora]

"seems like we need to either promote higher fertility or start cutting retirement benefits or both if we want developed economies like the UK to have a better future. wouldn't you agree?" - they are not the only choices. People who have paid NI all their lives deserve to have their pension as planned. We should start by cutting the work shy scum budget, stop giving billions to foriegners, abandon net zero and utilise our natural resources.

We also need to stop the illegals and associated costs. Cut the national debt to reduce servicing costs.

reverse devolution and that layer of costs. Abolish the HOL replace with an elected chamber. abolish all local authorities replace with management teams to perform vital functions. We don't need local politics. Reduce/abolish company taxes to attract world businesses. Abolish all but the basic rate of income tax.

[Untitled]

how would any of that reverse the trend of ageing in our population? that's just a laundry list of things you agree with. 
 

young professionals aren't starting families because they can't afford to. Abolishing the house of lords isn't going to help. 

[ToraToraTora]

I'm not trying to reverse that trend. We can't do much about birth rates but we can make better use of resources and encourage new ones to come here.

The world has reached peak child, world population will start to fall as poorer countries start to prosper.

https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/the-world-has-passed-peak-child

[ToraToraTora]

"young professionals aren't starting families because they can't afford to." - perhaps but they are also less inclined to start families. As society prospers fewer children are born that's a fact. We should focus on making our country as efficent as possible and that means reducing the state apparatus as much as possible, encouraging employers to come here, cutting taxes to encourage endeavour etc