@Rhian: According to the Treasury’s 2010 intergenerational report ... “In 1970, there were 7.5 people of working age to support every person aged 65 and over. By 2010 this has fallen to an estimated 5 people of working age .... By 2050 the number is projected to decline to 2.7 people"

That would be a lot more meaningful if the statistic was about how many non-working people each worker had to support. Yes, the number of older people are going up. But the proportion of 0..20 year olds is going down. The younger generation are much more expensive to support. They require a full time carer for the first couple years, and feeding, clothing, schooling, and transport for the next 2 decades. The older generation only requires that level of support in their last few months.

And seriously, how can anyone consider the immigration to be a permanent solution to the ageing problem? At some stage, at some time in the future, the country will be full. All you are doing is delaying the problem, and making it bigger at the same time.

@Rhian: Population growth is much more costly than demographic ageing.

We need massive tax hikes to manage population growth (or the current reduction in quality of life, environment, services and infrastructure). That is why we already have a massive $770b infrastructure deficit and crippled budgets at every level of government trying to keep up.

We need appropriate reform around tax, super, retirement age, health insurance, etc to manage our modest ageing challenge.

A ponzi scheme will simply pass on a bigger challenge.

Ruth1
The reason these countries do not have an aging population is because they have high mortality and fertility rates – lots of kids are born, very few make it to old age. Not a comparable demographic. And some developing countries do have an aging population problem. China’s one-child policy has wreaked havoc with its demographic profile and created a 4-2-1 dependence structure – one working child supporting two aging parents and four grandparents. Not much fun when there’s no significant social security, and a cautionary tale for the social engineers who would try to coerce lower birth rates.

Rstuart
If you look at my post or the treasury paper I quote, you’ll see that the decline in child dependency of the past few decades has run its course. From here on the under 15 population is projected to be a fairly stable % of the total while the aged steadily rise, so total dependents will rise as a % of working age people.

I’m not sure children are cheaper than old people, especially the very old (85+) who will be the fastest growing age cohort. Their health and aged care costs are very high. Many retirees are entitled to aged pension, which costs far more than child support. The Treasury report suggests that more rapid growth in health and pension costs will far outweigh comparatively modest growth in education costs.

I don’t consider migration a permanent or complete solution to the aging problem, but I do challenge the author’s implication that we have no problem.

Sustainable choice
Where do your infrastructure numbers come from?

VK3AUU
I was poking fun at the anti-pops. It all harmless, there's no way their ideas will ever get up.

AND OH YES..
Another point has occured to me. Most of the debate about the ratio of retirees to workforce has long been recognised as something of a furphy. Its long been known that people are retiring later, generally, and that messes up all the previously calculated dependency ratios.

But even with people generally retiring later, if we really needed more workers then we could have policies for encouraging those in their 50s or so who have fallen out of the workforce, for one reason or another, to get back into it. There are quite a number in unwilling retirement who would like to get back in, who can't get a job as companies simply do not hire people in that age bracket - unless its from an existing job.

Rhian
Wrong again. Please check your stats before your next post. China does not have a 4:2:1 demographic profile - their demographic pyramid is actually starting to resemble a developed country (US Census Bureau International Data Base). I'm glad you understand that countries who don't age have high mortality and fertility rates, so what's your problem? Do you want to stop our population ageing by social engineering a massive migration program? Or do you want to deny women the right to control their bodies? Surely you don't want a high death rate? The dirty secret behind global population growth is that millions of poor women are being denied access to the education and resources to control their fertility.

@Rhian: If you look at my post or the treasury paper I quote, you’ll see that the decline in child dependency of the past few decades has run its course.

No doubt. But prior to that we had large drop without the large increase in non-working retires, and now we are returning to the status quo.

@Rhian: I’m not sure children are cheaper than old people, especially the very old (85+)

True. But an 85+ year old typically doesn't live for 20 years. If they need that sort of care they typically don't last 12 months.

@Rhian: Many retirees are entitled to aged pension, which costs far more than child support

But not far more than supporting a child, which if you are looking at it from the economies point of view is the more valid viewpoint. As the article pointed out: "In simple terms, grandparents mind children; children don't mind grandparents."

The reality is people are happy to pay to support their children, but now they don't have so many children are resisting putting the same money towards their parents. This has to change at some stage. Or not - maybe some would be happier we just adopted letting them die in poverty as the answer. Regardless, propping up the ponzi scheme with immigration does not facilitate the change.

@Rhian: I don’t consider migration a permanent or complete solution to the ageing problem, but I do challenge the author’s implication that we have no problem.

He acknowledges we are going through a change, and that change will require reallocation of resources with all the usual arguments that engenders. I don't regard that as serious enough to be "a problem". Loosing world petroleum production capacity roughly equal to the words 2nd largest producer (Iran) in the next 12 months is "a problem", and the world's food experts predicting we can't possibly feed the world population in 20 years time as "another problem". This is trivial in comparison. Even the page you link to predicts rising GDP per person in the next 40 years. How does that constitute "a problem"?