Forget climate change, ageing populations are the real problem

Pensioner; ageing population; demographics

Old man Europe must find a way to keep up with the younger populations of Asia, Africa & America

FIRST POSTED JULY 8, 2009

Perhaps it is because we are so preoccupied with climate change that we pay so little attention to another form of change – this time demographic – which is also creeping up on us. Already, Europe's people are older than any other continent's and its fertility rate, at 1.5 children per woman, is way below replacement level. Across the continent deaths outnumber births. At the same time life expectancy is increasing, so much so that 19 out of the world's 20 oldest countries, in terms of population age, are European:

• In 1950 there were 5.5 million people aged over 65 in Britain. Now there are more than 10 million, and in twenty five years time there will be over 15 million. But the number of people of working age, who will have to support them, is likely to stay roughly the same at a little over 40 million.

• The British birth rate has been below replacement level since the mid-1970s, yet our population is not just growing but rocketing. By 2030 it is projected to increase by 10 million to over 70 million. By 2050 it is projected to reach 75 million

• This is mainly because net immigration into this country over the last decade has been running at 200,000 a year, sometimes even more. Allowing for the 200,000 people who also leave the country annually, we have recently been taking up to half-a-million migrants a year – the highest in our history.

• Without immigration, the population would rise to just 64 million by 2030, mainly as a result of people living longer, before slowly declining. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Europe the big worry is what will happen when populations fall.

• The Russian population is already dropping at the rate of 10,000 a week, thanks to a very low birth rate and reduced life expectancy after the collapse of Communism. In 2000 there were 148 million Russians, by 2050 this is projected to fall to 116 million.

• In Germany they live longer, but a birth rate of just 1.4 children per woman and comparatively low immigration means their population is also projected to fall - by 12 million between now and mid-century.

• Countries with very low birth rates and emigration, rather than immigration, will shrink even faster. By 2050 Bulgaria is projected to lose 30 per cent of its population, Ukraine and Belarus nearly 25 per cent apiece, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania roughly 20 per cent each, Croatia 15 per cent and Hungary 10 per cent.

• It had been thought that Italy and Spain would also shrink because of their very low birth rates. But immigration into both countries has recently been even higher than it is here. Between 2000 and 2005 net immigration averaged 500,000 a year in Spain and 350,000 a year in Italy. As a result the populations of both are now expected to level peg, but this will not stop them ageing dramatically. By 2050, a third of all Italians are expected to be pensioners.

Around the world, by mid-century the UN reckons that there will be over a billion more Asians, just under a billion more Africans, 200 million more Latin Americans, 130 million more North Americans – and some 40 million fewer Europeans.

The Power of Numbers – Why Europe Needs to Get Younger by Richard Ehrman, is published by Policy Exchange and the University of Buckingham Press. Price £12.99

FIRST POSTED JULY 8, 2009

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Why not just copy out Mad Mark Steyn's text and be done with it?

Posted by allan kessing at 1:53am on July 9, 2009

Far from forgetting about climate change, it is going to solve all Ehrman's concerns. He seems to think that the world will just continue as before, his limited imagination can't cope with huge changes, so he sticks with what he knows, numbers. None of the forecasts for population numbers he quotes take into account anything but already observed trends; as if the world will quietly continue as it is. But climate change is going to change all that, and young and old alike will find it difficult to survive when climate change makes growing food increasingly difficult. All productive farmland is exactly the land that has been and will be flooded. In 25 years' time there will be so many cataclysmic events that it is doubtful civil society as we know it can continue. In 50 years' time it unlikely that more than 50% of the present world population will still exist. We have reached the point of unsustainability, the human population is now too large, and natural factors are set to reduce it drastically. The problem is, levels of awareness as exhibited by this writer are all too common, business as usual, and the human species is lamentably ill equipped to understand what's happening, let alone take action to mitigate the effects of the processes we have started. My advice to Ehrman is either to study the subject of climate change in depth before shooting your mouth off, or just stick to what you do understand and don't use climate change as a cheap headline grabber. Climate change will take care of all the aged you seem obsessed with, and a lot of the young as well. And we haven't even started to consider such things as the end of effective antibiotics, resistant bugs people catch regularly in hopspital and which are on the increase, or the viruses that are even now mutating into new forms we will have no defence against. The assumption that life will just continue as it is sounds especially naive and clueless in this scenario. Nice of First Post to run an ad for the author's book, do it the world of good I'm sure. It's relevance is non existent though.

Posted by Peter Simmons at 11:33am on July 10, 2009

What I am not quite clear about, which is not mentioned at all in the article, is why having an older population should be viewed as a catastrophic, or even an unfortunate, situation. It is only if those older people are forced out of employment and into poverty, and only if their health is very poor that it will be a problem. Look on the bright side, a country run by older people is a country run by less volatile and more experienced poeple. (when I say 'run' I mean the voters will be older and so politicians will have to take their views more into consideration). Late maturity can be the best part of a person's life and they are certainly not useless at this time. This article just reeks with an emotional repugnance of the elderly. Older people are a bit slower and so tend to get in younger people's way in the supermarket aisle or on the motorway, but is it such a good thing to conduct your life at breakneck speed? Older people are not as pretty as younger ones, and in a society obsessed by looks this counts heavily against them too. This emerging demographic should be viewed as an opportunity to change society for the better.

Posted by Hilary Easton at 6:38pm on July 10, 2009