Date: January 30th, 2022 8:51 AM
Author: councel
The depopulation timebomb facing the West is about to explode
Deaths are set to outstrip births as soon as 2025 and new policies will soon be needed to cope with an ageing population
By
Tom Rees
22 January 2022 • 12:00pm
Population old ageing globe world
Elon Musk’s quest to make humanity a multi-planet species has a hitch.
The SpaceX boss hopes to have people landing on Mars within five
years as part of his vision for a “futuristic Noah’s ark”. But Musk
fears his plan to colonise the Red Planet will fail to take off if Earth
cannot even sustain its own population.
“We should be much more worried about population collapse,” Musk
warned in a series of tweets last week, calling the UN’s more sanguine
projections “utter nonsense”.
“If there aren’t enough people for Earth, then there definitely won’t be enough for Mars.”
Once a problem far in the future, the population crisis is
arriving earlier than expected after the Covid baby bust. Populations in
countries including Japan are already in decline, while those in the
likes of Spain, South Korea and China are set to halve by 2100.
But for some, including Sir David Attenborough, the big
population bust should not be feared. The nature broadcaster has called
for the global population to be brought under control in order to
maintain living standards, calling humanity a “plague on Earth”.
What is certain is that many countries will be facing a
population crisis this decade. It is an issue that is slowly gaining
prominence and climbing up the political agenda.
“This is genuinely a timebomb,” says Tory MP Damian Green,
former Work and Pensions Secretary and head of the All-Party
Parliamentary Group for Longevity.
“We have taken some steps in governments over the years but
nothing like enough. Increasing the pension age is a rational response
to the fact that we all live longer…. [But] what do we do if we are
going to live decades longer than before? How do we stop that becoming a
burden?”
A shrinking, and most importantly ageing, population will
present big economic challenges, from funding and manning stretched
health services to readapting housing and coping with a smaller
workforce to tax. Ageing populations risk draining resources as experts
warn of a 100-year life cycle on the horizon.
While the same population forces are taking hold across the
world, individual countries are at different stages. Japan and Russia
are already suffering record declines while many African countries are
enjoying rapid growth.
The UN expects the global population to peak around 2100, but
other experts - and Musk - believe that is far too optimistic. One
startling scenario predicts the top to be in 2064.
A projection from the University of Washington's Institute for
Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) warned that 23 countries, including
Japan, Spain, South Korea and Thailand, will see their populations more
than halve by the end of the century. China is currently the most
populated country in the world but its numbers are forecast to crash
from a peak of 1.4bn to 732m in 2100.
In developed countries, longer life spans and falling fertility
rates mean societies are ageing rapidly with many soon unable to
maintain their populations as deaths outstrip births. Rising numbers of
women in education and work, usage of contraception and often precarious
financial health of younger generations have driven the sharp decline
in fertility rates in recent decades.
In China, enforced lower births via the one-child policy between
1980 and 2015 means its population is now ageing rapidly. Analysts at
Bank of America warn it could begin declining as soon as this year after
a 12pc drop in births in 2021 came off the back of an 18pc plunge the
previous year.
Britain escapes relatively lightly in the IHME projections,
seeing its population rise slightly by 2100 after a peak in 2063. But it
still faces the same challenges from a rapidly ageing population - a
boy born in the UK in 2020 can expect to live until 87 years old, and a
girl over 90.
The UK’s fertility rate has fallen to 1.6 births per woman, but
remains above Spain’s at 1.2, Japan’s at 1.4 and Germany’s at 1.5.
Lord Willetts, former minister and president of the Resolution
Foundation, says: “Compared with Italy, or Japan, or China, our
adjustment is not as severe. Britain is up there, almost as good as
America, in that our birth rate remains closer to 2.
“What we've got at the moment is a very severe fall in the birth
rate, partly because of the pandemic. So, looking ahead, it looks as if
in the long run [Britain is] moving down to a birth rate rather lower
than we are familiar with.”
However, the Office for National Statistics warned last week
that the UK’s natural population will begin falling as soon as 2025,
meaning births are not keeping up with deaths. That is almost two
decades sooner than previously thought, though immigration will prop up
the population until 2058 before an overall decline begins.
The economics of the crisis poses huge challenges for
governments. Without policy action, an older society sucks more money
for health and social care spending and pension payments.
More retirees become a bigger burden on a relatively smaller
workforce, meaning taxes may need to be pushed up further to maintain
the same level of services. Britain also has less specialist and old
age-friendly housing compared to other countries, such as the US and New
Zealand.
In the UK, soaring health spending from ageing, rather than
higher pension costs, will pose the biggest pressure on the public
finances.
Total age-related spending will rise from 21pc of GDP in
2022-23, to 29pc in 2067-68, according to the Office for Budget
Responsibility. In the late 2060s, spending on state pensions will be
7pc of GDP but spending on health will soar from today’s 8pc to 14pc
while social care costs will rise from 1pc to 2pc.
Ben Zaranko, economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, says
a declining population is not necessarily a problem for the economy but
the ageing alongside it poses challenges.
“If you've got a smaller population, you have a smaller economy,
but each individual might be just as prosperous. The problem is it’s
coming alongside a change in the structure.”
He adds that this could mean a greater focus on GDP per capita
as population declines mean productivity needs to pick up to maintain or
grow the size of the economy.
“As economies get richer, each individual tends to have fewer
children on average and so we shouldn't be decrying the fact that we're a
more prosperous society. It is going to create challenges but a lot of
the underlying causes here are things to celebrate.”
The Government has raised the state pension age and announced
the new Health and Social Care Levy to alleviate growing pressures, but
experts believe much more action will be needed.
Sir Steve Webb, former pensions minister and partner at
consultants LCP, warns April’s National Insurance hike to pay for higher
health and social care spending “will look like a drop in the ocean
compared to the tax bills to be faced by future generations”.
“There is a real danger that short-term political timetables mean that we are not preparing properly for an ageing population.”
In addition to higher health spending and older retirement ages,
a mix of immigration, efforts to revive falling fertility rates and
preventative health measures can cushion the blow of an ageing
population.
“We're in the foothills of this climb,” says MP Green. “The
Government has promised in the manifesto that we would have five extra
years of healthy life by 2035. That's not that far away and we've not
taken any steps to make that happen.”
Last year Scotland, which has the worst fertility rate in the
UK, launched its first population strategy as it fights to de-age its
workforce. It included better access to fertility treatment, financial
incentives for young families to set up north of the border and policies
to encourage Scots to extend their working lives.
Prof Sarah Harper, director of the Oxford Institute of
Population, is more sanguine on the threat, however, saying medical
advances and encouraging healthy lifestyles can push working lives into
their 60s and 70s.
She says countries don’t need “lots of young people to drive
economies”, arguing it is “going to be different” in the 21st century.
“A combination of healthy ageing, technology and freer work
migration: they are the policy levers we can use to cope with the fact
that it is perfectly natural for our populations to flatten and even
decline across the 21st century.”
Regardless of whether people side with Musk’s woes of not
producing enough humans to fill other planets or Attenborough’s
environmental concerns, the population collapse is looming - and far
faster than previously thought. As the issue gains political prominence,
how governments respond will ultimately prove vital.
(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5019815&forum_id=2#43873090)
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