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?

[Untitled]

then what about the age pyramid? more retirees and fewer people of working age won't be overcome with "efficiency". we can't just ignore that problem or else in 20 years we'll end up in a situation where the UK is a nursing home with a country attached

[ToraToraTora]

11:08 Yes, agreed, additional to the measures I talk about above we also have to accept that people are living longer and thus retirement age must also rise. When it was first set at 60/65 (wrong way round but that's another discussion) quite lot didn't reach it and those that did didn't live much past it. To have the same effect we'd have to set the age to 80, now I am not suggesting that for a moment but that's the arithmetic of it. TBF though this and previous governments have started the process. I have retired but I am not yet at retirement age and I expect those goal posts to move more than they already have, currently retirement for me is 67, I fully expect that to be at least 68 by the time I get there.

[Untitled]

i don't think people of my age will ever get to retire :/ 

[naomi24]

It's up to you to build your pension pot then.

[ToraToraTora]

11:37 do you have no pension scheme?

[Untitled]

i do personally yes. 

[naomi24]

Well you can retire when you've put in enough in then.

[Untitled]

that's fine for people like me who have it but i doubt very much that my generation will benefit from the triple lock and eligibility age will just keep going up and up.

[Hymie]

Charles should make a Royal Proclamation; that his subjects should Fornicate Under Command (of the) King.

[New Judge]

The difficulty with an ever-increasing population is that eventually it will run out of everything that it needs to be sustained. In places where over-population is evident, this is very clear to see.

As far as the particular problem you cite (an  ageing population) the thing this country will probably run out of first is younger people who are needed to finance and care for the older people in their dotage.

One of the suggested remedies (to increase the population further) has one considerable drawback: the new people which are introduced to care for the old will, incredible as it may seem, eventually get old themselves. There will be more of them (because the population in general is increasing) and so they will require even more young people to care for them. When even more are introduced to care for them er… they get old as well. 

It's obviously a ridiculous solution and about as sensible as encouraging cats to have more kittens because so many of them end up in a sack at the bottom of the canal.

I don’t know what the entire solution is. But suggesting the population must be increased because there is a problem resulting from there being too many people, even if only of a particular age group, is not part of it.Evenually everybody will become par of the problem age group and so tthe problem will persist and probably exacerbate.

One remedy to address the financial burden that the State Pension scheme places on taxpayers is to abolish it. There is no reason why the State should provide such a scheme – especially one where there is no solid link between contributions and benefits. It would take fifty years to achieve entirely. Those already in receipt should continue to receive it on the agreed terms; those yet to start work will not receive it at all (and so will be exempt from making the contributions that are tenuously linked to the benefits pensioners receive from the current scheme); there would have to be some sort of sliding arrangement for those in between. Knowing the inertia and lack of competence in many Civil Service departments I imagine devising this run down would be beyond their capabilities and so would be filed in the "too difficult" drawer.

[New Judge]

“…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??”

The country became affluent and the population now spends a far greater proportion of its income on items that people fifty years ago would not have dreamed of. In 1970 the priority on their income for most couples was accommodation, food & drink, utility bills. There were no mobile phones at a grand a pop and fifty quid a month contract; if they had a car it was one old runaround rather than two on lease; most holidays – if they could afford one -  were taken in the UK; eating out was an occasional luxury, not a weekly entitlement; coffee was made with Nescafe and a kettle, not provided by Baristas charging £4 a cup; personal computers ran to a pocket calculator (with no broadband costs); watches told you the time and not how many calories you’d consumed or had burned off.

Successive governments are to blame for some hugely increased costs – particularly energy where the country’s energy security and affordability have been sacrificed in pursuit of an unachievable and pointless ambition. 

In short, people have far more things to spend their money on, many of which they don’t really need.

[davebro3]

I have always thought that you should "retire" for the first 30 or 40 years of your life (when you are able to enjoy it the most) then work until you die.🙄