AGEING POPULATIONS

Growth can stop without disaster. There are alternative advantages for profits and employment in a stable or even declining society. A look around Australia - or any country - shows so much qualitative improvement that is needed and possible that there should be no shortage of jobs and profits without requiring continual increased consumption and waste of diminishing resources.

If all the jobs that needed to be done were being done, including conserving resources and preventing waste, there need be no unemployment, even if there were fewer people needing new housing and commodities.

But the arguments for fearing an ageing population paradoxically include lack of younger workers to support them.

Mind-boggling figures have been thought up by the United Nations Population Division report on 'Replacement Migration' such as that to keep the support ratio of workers to dependents constant, South Korea, for example would need 94 million immigrants per year, 'almost twice its current population, adding up to 5.1 billion by 2050, that is 5/6ths of today's world population'. Immigrants themselves age - and so according to the growth myth, even more immigration would then be needed to support them.

There is overwhelming evidence against the myth that without continuing population growth, an ageing population could not be supported by its working members. Over the last fifty years the proportion of Australians aged under fifteen has shrunk to 20% while those aged over 65 has increased to 12% , with no noticeable difficulties, and over the next fifty years, proportions are expected to be 16% and 24%. Support ratios of workers to the elderly of 4:1 are not a problem for Western countries. The total dependency of old people in nursing homes is only on average 7 months for men and 2 years for women. On average, people require two years of substantial health care before their deaths - regardless of whether they are young or old.

Aged pensions are only one third of the total value of Commonwealth income support payments (1996-7 figures) and the proportion of self-funded retirees is increasing as superannuation becomes nearly universal. The greater problem that Australia should be facing is the increasing proportion of younger people who require support and are unemployable for many reasons, from minimal brain damage through drugs and accidents, to inadequate literacy. (With so much youth unemployment, why is Australia unable to skill and train its own young people, rather than importing them from developing countries?)

Most old people contribute to the community and the economy in inestimable voluntary work in every area, including as grandparents, who provided 68% of all informal child care in Australia in 1997, Today with better health, a higher proportion of older people are still capable of regular employment in many fields - the irony is that enforced retirement can now commence at 45 or 50. So much for the threatened shortage of workers.

On the other hand, the period of total dependency of children is increasing - even up to 24 years old. Their rearing and education costs far more in worker time and in expense than costs of the elderly. Fewer children and more elderly would be less burden on the 'workers' in between. The chief economic advantage is as a market for consumer goods and services that is greater than older people require. But who pays?

We can think - why should populations remain constant at their present possibly unsustainable levels? World population only reached one billion in the 19th century and it is now 6 billion and rising - and there are now no more 'empty' continents to pour into, only more extending deserts. The greatest contributions to civilisation have been made by small cities no bigger than Geelong.

There are good reasons for considering that the only good reason for immigration to developed countries is humanitarian. Since population problems globally are 'too many people' rather than 'too few', it is also practical as well as humane to take international action about the growing millions of economic and political refugees by stopping the social, economic and political causes that are producing such distress, so that people can live prosperously in their own countries. Refugees in Africa alone now outnumber the total population of Australia. 5

At present Britain as well as Australia has pretty unnatural methods of segregated child-care and much needs to be done to make being a child and having children more enjoyable in shared community. The social drawbacks to one and two-child families are needless.

It is also desirable that the most civilised features of our Western heritage should not be submerged, but shared with the world - regardless of the races who inherit it.

References

1 Chamie, J. Director, Population Division, United Nations, New York, was the spokesman for the widely-reported press release, 'Replacement Migration: Is it a Solution to declining and Ageing Populations?' January, 2000 and for the final report, March, 2000.

2 Curnow, J. (2000). Myths and the fear of an ageing population. Occasional paper prepared for Sustainable Population Australia.

3 Leridon, H. (2000) Vieillissement démographique et migrations: quand les Nations unies veulent remplir le tonneau des Danaïdes.... Population & Sociétés, No. 358. Translation by Sheila Newman

4 Russell, C. and Russell, W. M. S. (1999). Population Crises And Population Cycles. London: The Galton Institute.

5 Stanton, William. The Rapid Growth of Human Populations 1750-2000:Histories, Consequences, Issues, Nation by Nation. William. NI: Multiscience Publishing Company Ltd. 2003

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