Hear hear, Valerie.
The most ridiculous claim of 'dangerous levels of elderly people' is the one about needing more immigrants to look after the aged. We have a continuous supply of under employed people now, who are ideally suited for the role: they're called 'retirees'. Most 50 to 70 year olds are more than fit and healthy enough to look after their older compatriots, and who could be more suitable (or empathic) for the role?
As I've pointed out elsewhere, http://thecomensality.com/avasay/living-off-the-land/feed
Baby Boomers could lead the world again, and be the new pioneer colonists.
Far from being a drag on modern Growth Economies, these colonies could quite conceivably be self sufficient, both in energy and in food
They could quite conceivably even have export industries.
For decades now I've been struck by how many hard working small business people I've witnessed dying, within a remarkably short time into their retirement years. By contrast, those people who hated their jobs and looked forward to retirement as the rest of look forward to a long weekend live on for decades.
Surely it makes more sense to find employment activities that people actually enjoy doing, and don't feel any need to retire from, than forcing people into work they hate? Talk of raising the retirement age for people who are employed and enjoy their jobs is all very well, but what about all those over 50 who can't get a job?
The technological era was supposed to end drudgery. Even growing food these days can be simple, easy and enjoyable, using hydroponics:
http://nakedhydroponics.com

Yeah and amen.

David

Generally , I agree with this article. There may be an interim problem , in the next few years , as more baby boomers retire , through there being insufficient persons of working age to pay taxes for Government funded age pensions .

However , if the current rate of population increase [ said to be insufficient ] continues , the problem will gradually reduce as boomers die . We will then have a reduced population , which will be better for the environment .

People may have to spend less on discretionary items , which will be better for their health and will not reduce their enjoyment of life . If the sellers of discretionary items have to reduce their discretionary expenditure , that too will be good .

I am aged 66 and am a self funded retiree . My taxes continue to support social security recipients of all ages , which I do not resent . Many people of all ages live beyond their means , consuming at an environmentally destructive rate , while demanding that taxpayers continue supporting them .

I do not have a rosy view of all boomers . Some have lived sustainably , during their working lives , and continue doing so . Others lived without making adequate provision for retirement , even though they had the means to achieve that end . Now the latter believe that they are entitled to be provided by the taxpayers with a standard of living equivalent to that of a member of the workforce .

Some boomers perform considerable community service . Others spend their time driving Winnebagos around the country and playing the pokies , while complaining about cost of living pressures .

Bravo Valerie. Well said. While I agree with what you've said, I think we have to put this in the context of a rapidly changing world that may see permanent recession as a result of high oil prices. We have passed the peak of conventional oil production and are only staving off higher prices because unconventional oil (deepwater, tar sands etc) is making up the shortfall. But those sources can only supply so much and prices will rise, probably setting off another global recession from which we may not recover. What does this mean for ageing? It means we're going to have to put up with a lower standard of living and do more work in our retirement such as caring for the elderly, growing food etc. Then, too, there is climate change. The future is going to be hard, I fear.

Baby-boomers and Valerie Yule:
Have you salved your guilt yet?
Or is it that you are justifying your pillage?

You see what the baby boomers have done is take from the generations before them: The baby-boomers had a luxourious start in life compared to their hard-working 1950's parents)

And taking from the generations following: You are destroying the government budget now. The tiny population of Gen X and Gen Y are funding your generous welfare pensions and free medicare health and retimrement living and your heavy use of shared resources (including almost free everything from trains to roads).

And your destruction of the market economy also. The global financil crisis is the result of too many old people making the same investment decisions, cashing out acssets and saving insteading of investing. THe same thing happened in Japan in the 1990's - because Japan's population aged earlier than western nations (they didn't win WWII and so didn't have a baby-boom).

But why? Why did the baby-boomers fail, miserably fail, to even break-even in terms of producing a future in children?

Why did the free-love generation fail to have anywhere like enough children? Why did this generation suicide?

Birth control is a factor. Feminism is a bigger one. Men today don't want to become fathers... Australia has the world's highest rate of vasectomies. Nightclubs are full of 'hen's nights, while men no-longer celebrate 'bucks nights'.

Because when a man tells his mates he's getting martried, his friends look grim and warn him "are you sure about this?" Too many men have had their lives destroyed and their children fed to the lawyers in divorce... Feminism has made marriage a stupid thing for a man. Especially a working or professional man.

...continued...

... continued...

The tragedy for women

Not surprisingly but tragically, the floor of city offices are now full of attractive 30-something women who can't get husbands. Our best and brightest women can't get men to marry them. So

So the downward spiral of fewer and fewer children every generation continues.

Except if you live on welfare - where fathers have been replaced by overgenerous single-mum payments of various sorts, which encourage divorce and bribe these women to have more children than they often want, and tragically often more children than they can look after. Women on welfare can't afford *not* to have large families.

What we need is natalist policies, especially for the professional/middle-class.

We need to stop the complex bureaucracy that bribes the poor. Instead make children reduce your tax.

Income tax splitting for families is the fairest. For a typical family, dad's one income is taxed, and then what's left supports his wife and two kids. The tax system should support kids first.

Take the family income and divide it between everybody in the family, then each pay tax on their share. THis would allow middle-class people to have the children they want.

It would close the huge bureaucracy which administers the stupidly complex payments system (Family tax A and B, Family tax bonus, baby bonus, maternity leave, child care benefit, childcare rebate, health-care cards... etc etc)

And it would reduce the financial incentives that encourage divorce and single-parenthood... Missing out on BOTH natural parents is statistically the main predictor of child neglect/abuse, child disadvantage, drugs/pregnancy/violence etc. and children who never reach their potential

@partTimeParent

Thank you for your comments. I assume from these Comments , that you are an Member of the MeMe Generation, whose contribution to Society consists , mainly, of whinging, generally at those nasty Baby Boomers.

When , we were raising children, you have used terms , that as a then Parent, I don't recognize. Could you explain then to a Baby Boomer Parent ,Please ?

They are contained in this quote.."huge bureaucracy which administers the stupidly complex payments system (Family tax A and B, Family tax bonus, baby bonus, maternity leave, child care benefit, childcare rebate, health-care cards... etc etc)"

Thank You.

Thanks Valerie for a rational assessment of Homo sapiens’ parlous condition in the twentyfirst century.

One more important thread could have been teased out: the net cost to “western” society is much less from the 65-and-above age cohort to the costs from the 0-15 age group.

At some stage, regardless of such costs, human society will have to come to grips with stabilizing their numbers in cohesion with their resources. There is nothing new in that. It was recognized in 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.
Only when fundamentalist thinking, from all quarters, cease having traction on national governments against implementing the 1994 Cairo development accord will there be any hope for progress.

Seventeen years have passed since that accord. World population has increased by about 1.3 billion, and continues to increase by about 1.1 per cent - and most sadly, women in less-developed places like Somalia continue to have an estimated average of more than six children.

Not convinced.

"The story of Easter Island is like a microcosm of what we can see elsewhere in the world today"

Only if you believe Jared Diamond. Or if you think we're still vulnerable to slave traders and smallpox.

"Many developed, as well as developing countries, show problems that are increasing by growing population further."

Ok, I'll bite. Which ones are they?

"There are alternative advantages for profits and employment in a stable or even declining society. A look around any country shows significant qualitative improvement."

Some examples would be nice. From "any country".

"Over the last fifty years the proportion of Australians aged under fifteen has shrunk to 20 per cent while those aged over 65 has increased to 12 per cent, with no noticeable difficulties"

Ummm... maybe it's just me, but aren't both those categories non-working? So they might just offset each other? Just saying.

"The total dependency of old people in nursing homes is only on average 7 months for men and 2 years for women."

And this number is expected to a) rise, b) fall? With the consequence that...?

"Fewer children and more elderly would be less burden on the 'workers' in between."

Perhaps. For a while. Then... what?

"The greatest contributions to civilisation have been made by small cities no bigger than an outback country town."

Eh? What possible relevance has this factoid? Even if it is true - which "greatest contributions to civilisation" might they be?

In a previous article on this Forum, the author raised concerns over the escalating cost of meals-on-wheels and home care. I notice these do not get an airing here, despite the fact that they are a significant cost associated with caring for the elderly. Given that both the numbers and the cost are certain to rise, I would have thought that they would warrant at least a passing mention.

partTime Parent,

Our fertility rate is slightly below replacement level, as it has been since 1976, but the population is continuing to grow by natural increase, i.e., the population would be growing even if we had zero net immigration. This natural growth was by more than 150,000 last year.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0

The paradox exists because of demographic momentum from past high fertility. If the young adult generation is big enough compared to older generations, it doesn't matter if they don't have many children, as births will still outnumber deaths. Natural increase is only likely to end at some time in the 2030s, after which the population (absent net immigration) will very slowly decrease, unless we encourage people to have a few more babies. The overall population growth rate last year, including immigration, was 1.5%, perhaps the highest in the developed world. We are hardly running out of people.

The Baby Boom generation is actually smaller than Generation X, which in turn is smaller than Generation Y. See

http://markoconnor-australianpoet.blogspot.com/2011/06/bernard-salt-abandons-his-baby-bust.html

As Mark O'Connor explains in the above link, life is getting harder for ordinary people from a number of aspects, and this is largely due to government policies, especially government sponsored population growth. The politicians, business leaders, and media are trying to turn a class issue into a generational issue, so that you blame the Baby Boomers and not them. As with every other generation, most Baby Boomers have worked hard for modest rewards and had very little say in anything. Furthermore, most of them had no access to superannuation for much of their working lives, although they were taxed to pay for the (non-means-tested) pensions of their predecessors, as well as the infrastructure you resent them using. The aged pension is hardly generous compared to most other developed countries. It is "flat, frugal, and heavily means tested". The cost of dying is an issue, but it is just as great when people die young.

Whoa, can we back up a minute here?, whilst I am not a paragon of
knowledge, or 100% well versed in the vagaries of population growth, I would at least like to add a thought or two.
Watching Q&A a few months ago, a young uni student put his hand up and spewed forth a selfish diatribe as to why he, a graduate at uni, should be funding the old people out of his hard earned money...well, for all of those people out there who opine in a similar vein, who do you think funded your Grandparents' pensions?, their off spring, that is who.
Similarly, my generation funded my parents retirement pension.We have to remember, that for some of us, when Superannuation came in to play, were closer to the end of our working career than just starting it. When in our forties, to accumulate enough money to support this ageing couple in their dotage was nigh on impossible. Child support was a pittance, no-one handed us thousands of dollars just to have a child, nor did the Government of the day pay either Parental leave or,
child care subsidy, let alone get your job back if you needed to return to the workplace. We had and raised only three children, our family allowance was a gripping $18 ($6 per child).
I wish today's generation could drop the Me Me Me attitude for a change. Now, for those who really resent the need for supporting our elders in the Community, My husband and myself have been volunteering in Marine Safety for 10years, and also at the Aged Care Home, and Aged Care Day Centre, we earned our pension whilst we were working, and we still do by volunteering.

I can't recall exactly where in the ABS data I found a particular link, but it clearly demonstrated that the Baby Bommers were not in fact going to be a burden as Gen X numbers were sufficient to support the boomers into retirement, the same data clearly showed that Gen Y and current birth rates would support Gen x numbers into their retirement. Not sure if the burden argument can be used as in this case.

The gen X and Y need to be reminded, that is is the baby boomers who have provided all the infrastructure that they currently enjoy the use of, so they shouldn't get to precious about having to support them in their dotage.

David

Dear VK3AUU,
Very Succinctly voiced, I am with you. by the way, is VK3AUU a radio
call user ID?, you don't have to answer of course.
Cheers David,
NSB

I can remember that one of the reasons why the British opened their doors to immigration after WW2 was the necessity of personnel to implement the National Health Service.

Fifty six years have gone by and that service is still in need of competent staff.

I believe that Valerie Yule with this article wanted to highlight the fact that, if one of the reasons for accepting migrants is that of alleviating the need of man power to look after our ageing people, we are on the wrong track.

The newcomers themselves will be ageing, sooner than we hoped and, they will need care.

What then? We’ll we have to ask for more migrants?

Political solutions are absurd devices to be of any value in solving human problems

"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."

Er... No. The population of South Korea is given by Wikipedia as 48 million. I don't know of any mathematics that would require twice as many people to move there PER YEAR to maintain any kind of ratio in the original population. I think this calls for a correction -- or a retraction.

When people can put forward 'statistics' like this without blinking, it shows a degree of carelessness that brings the rest of their claims into doubt.

JonJ. You have to remember that there are "liar, damned liars and statisticians".

NSB. Google me.

David

Aspley and Divergence... PartTime here.

Apsley, I don't understand your comment at all. For your information, I was born just after/at the end of the baby boom. So I spent my university days and my 20's and early 30's as a greenie leftie feminist idealist. I even worked for about ten years for organisations like Greenpeace, the communist party, Wilderness Society, ALP and unions.

THat was until I saw the harm that these "ism"s, these secular religions, these zealot-filled doctrines are doing. I worked on a government funded 'education kit' funded to try to reduce youth suicide... sadly it was hijacked by feminist religion and told youth-workers to listen to the verbally expressive girl, and ignore the real suicide risk... the silent detached boy. THis kit killed people. But it advanced the feminist religion.

Divergence, thaoughtfull points. thankyou.
1: the pop growth you mention includes net immigration. Natural increase are other unimportant things that are effectively one-offs that move births to this time, but don't increase the total. For example the age profiles you discuss. The fact is our fertility rate is still 1.8-something for every two adults (for every woman)... which is a dying population.

Mark O'Connor has it the wrong way around "[Bernard, you’ve done it again! The correct calculation is that in 2015 the working-age population will increase by 290,000 minus 246,000 = plus 44,000." What Marks calculation shows is that the working age population is still 44,000 larger than the retirees... a worsening of the dependance ratio, not an improvement.

Arguments about the details aside, I don't mean to insult the BB's, just point out that we are a dying race and that feminism is a major part of the cause.

Parttimeparent@pobox.com

Wow, what a load of tripe.
Our death rates double in the next 25 years and fertility will not.
As a nation ages they adopt and anti-immigration, close the door behind you' attitude and the author certainly seems to promote that.
By 2015, 1.2 million Aussies will celebrate their 65th birthday and 80% will require full or part pensions. Shame they introduced super 20 years to late!
Which generation created the term SKIN, oh yes, the boomers!
"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." What a heap of crap! Really the boomers will need to adjust their attitudes quickly.
I could go on, but arguring with data that is over 10 yerars old and an author who has no understanding of demographics, seems a little pointless. For the recorde, the ME generation is the boomers!

dempografix,

If you think that either population or consumption can grow without limit on a finite earth, you need to look up your old high school math teacher and ask him or her to explain exponential functions.

Divergence
You misunderstand me. We need to take the detox. Reduce immigration, reduce government, plan for a sustainable economy (flat or negative). It is not the western nations or the developed nations that have the masses population growth. 1/3 of the growth over the next 90 years will be due to increased longevity, not more babies.
Dear Val, has her head in the sand and simply saying that the fiscal challenges created by an ageing nation do not exist, is very dangerous indeed. We need a Family Assist Part C, when a family can take in a pensioner, get their approx $10k rent tax free and get a $5k benefit form the govt. 23% of our homes now are lone occupants and that is projected to rise to 33%. What a disaster in the making! For the principal place of residence of a pensioner, any value over $750k needs to be asset tested and reverse mortgages offered exclusively from the govt with a 25% equity guarantee. Death taxes need to be reintroduced, capital gains on the principal place of residence, owned under 10 years, needs to be 33%. Anti-speculations laws and yes this will all hurt, however the alternative is far worse. Negative gearing will go as the boomers retire and no longer need it. HECS needs to be abolished and cancelled for those who emigrated and have been away for longer than 5 years. 100,000 Aussies left last financial year permanently. Should I go on?

GST needs to go to 20% and the tax free threshold for PAYG needs to go to 35K. Increase pensions and welfare accordingly. Massive taxes on caravans and 4wds to stop the wastage of capital that the boomers will need to survive their entire lifespan. Many have not planned to live as long as they will and terms like SKIN need to be crushed out.

The aged need to go from success to significance and the youth from exclusion to inclusion.

Innovation needs govt support and risk must be fostered.

On consumption, private cars need to be shared and the community spirit dug up out of its grave. Kill of the set top box stupid deal for pensioners and give them cash for electricity and rates and food. Personal consumption of health services also needs a cap for individuals and health services flipped back to in home care and prevention. No more hospitals, just more doctors and nurses and the ability to get to the people. Many old people blame the younger generations for their consumption, yet you stole their great australiajn dream of owning a home. They went out and got the biggest mortgages they could to make the biggest gain because of the bs they were fed. Houses always go up is false. We need to stop counting international students in our population growth numbers as from 2006, if they were if they have been here longer than 12 months. 66% of our NOM is temporary visa holders! Stop calling people with mortgages, home owners as real outright home ownerships rates have fallen over the last 2 decades. Ok, I am on a rant....lol

Got this off the net.

The one thing I am constantly seeing in ALL of this mess is this . . . . finger pointing at others. So far, apparently the "I's" haven't done anything wrong but boy, the "you's" and the "they's". Have "they" ever screwed things up!!

I sometimes imagine 10 people in a boat at sea with one at a time steering. That one person happens to run into a rock, the boat gets a hole and starts to take on water. The eight of the remaining nine stand away and try to decide who appointed THAT idiot to steer and the ninth person says "Not to worry!! I can swim."

I have been around a few years (Boy have I!!) and this IS the worst mess this country has been in in ALL those years, minus WW2, and WE . . . . . all of us over about 50 . . . . . , pointed the country in this direction because as my sister said to me once, (as if HER life was hell) "MY kids are going to have it BETTER than I did!!" LOL Last month she said, "I just don't understand my grandkids!! Their parents give them EVERYthing and let them do as they please!!" Ah, ya mean kinda like YOU did with your kids??

We lack and refuse to accept responsibility and we are quickly losing our pride, honor and world standing but hey!! As they say in The French Quarter, "Let da Good Times Roll Cheri!!" But BOY, when this party ends I just hope we can all still smile. I "think" I'll be able to.

Individual
An advanced society should make the cost of living cheaper for the following generations. We did not and must accept that responsibility.

Why do you think kids are staying longer at home? Not one of them wants to live with tier parents! They can not afford to move out.

The boomers are the ME generation and will resist any change that effects THEIR back pocket. Climate change is a good example as it is really about EMOTION and the aged do not want to pay the piper.

I take responsibility and will do whatever I can to adjust the thinking and include the kids in the problem solving. The boomers and the generations before them knew nothing of mortgage stress and the kids certainly do not have it easier than we had it.

Why did the boomers introduce compulsory super 20 years to late?

Why do 30% of boomers feel thay dod not want to leave a finical legacy, where the generation before worked hard to? SKIN is offensive and will come back and bite them on the bum.

aging populations will be disastrous for the aged in Western nations and it is those same aged who must now participate in the problem solving.

PS: I am a boomer....

Dempografix,

There was a recent article in Science, a very respected peer reviewed journal, suggesting that disability is not going up anywhere near as fast as longevity, i.e., people are living longer, but they are not spending much more time in decrepitude. It is behind a pay wall, but here is a newspaper account

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/7991505/Costs-of-aging-population-have-been-overestimated.html

Other than that, I don't disagree with a lot of what you say. So far as hospitals are concerned, I think the main consideration should not be people's ages, but whether they can be helped in any meaningful sense. Approximately half the money that will ever be spent on your health care will be spent in the last 6 months of life. People should be encouraged to make advance directives, and they should be legally enforceable. On the other hand, if an elderly person is in otherwise good health, but is in pain or disabled because he or she needs a hip replacement, it would be cruel to refuse it, and possibly not even cost effective.

Another point -- it wasn't the Baby Boomers who took away the dream of home ownership, it was the politicians. They blew out demand by boosting immigration to unprecedented levels. They refused to promote decentralisation and restricted supply by not releasing enough land to meet the demand and by frontloading enormous infrastructure charges. Kelvin Thomson, the Labor MP (and the only major party politician I respect) wrote in a letter to the Economist that each new immigrant immediately requires $200,000 to $400,000 in infrastructure, mostly from the public purse. From a UK study, it is likely to be more than 20 years before they have contributed enough to pay for their share of it.

I am not worried about getting fertility up to replacement level when the time comes. Desired family size is closer to 3 than 2 in Australia.

http://adsri.anu.edu.au/pubs/popfutures/policy_responses_to_low_fertility.pdf

People don't have that extra child because of high housing costs and economic insecurity, i.e., the elite might have to stop profiteering from housing, give up offshoring and casualisation, and train apprentices instead of importing skilled migrants. Furthermore they need to decentralise and let people spread out. Children need to run, play, make noise, and explore the world. High density is conducive to none of these things.

train apprentices instead of importing skilled migrants,
Divergence,
Again I shall draw attention to the benefits of a National Service program. Your suggestion above seems to confirm that we need to establish a date for Day 1 for getting Australia back on track rather sooner than later.
It is beyond me how on one hand the B/boomer bashers are constantly blaming us (quite rightly) but at the same time are dead against a National Service. Don't they realise that by doing so they're going the exact same way as the BB's ? It's the lack of responsibility that made the BB's so self-centered. A National Service will re-establish a sense of responsibility in young people.

Divergence
4 million Aussies have a disability and lone occupants are said to be the same as smoking 2 packets of cigarettes a day in equivalent health terms. Isolation causes problems.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4430.0Media%20Release12009?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=4430.0&issue=2009&num=&view=

While rates may have declined over the last decade I expect, as age does determine these rates, that as our nation ages so these rates will go up.

Individual
On National Service. Perhaps a good idea. I will ponder on it more.