"Imagine an Australia with fewer and fewer children, increasing life expectancy and more and more old people as well as a shrinking workforce and slow population growth."

Unfortunately, federal governments of both persuasions seem to believe that we can keep our population 'young' by importing an ever-increasing number of people. Population growth has actually accelerated in recent times due to our supercharged immigration program.

The idea that high immigration is needed to counter an ageing population is fallacious and has been debunked by every reputable organisation.

As economists Cameron Murray and Leith van Onselen have noted:

"High immigration is also thought to combat population ageing and be a remedy for these non-existent costs of ageing.

This is wrong. Low immigration can affect the age structure by helping to stabilise the population, but high immigration has almost no long-run effect besides increasing the total population level. This creates bigger problems in the future.

It is also widely thought that simply investing in infrastructure will accommodate high immigration and population growth at little cost.

This too is wrong.

Diseconomies of scale are a feature of rapid infrastructure expansion due to (1) the need to retrofit built-up cities, (2) the dilution of irreplaceable natural resources, and (3) the scale of investment relative to the stock of infrastructure."

(continued from above...)

In their report 'Three Economic Myths about Ageing: Participation, Immigration and Infrastructure', Murray and van Onselen make the following findings:

- Population ageing is a successful result of efforts to improve longevity.

- Countries with older populations maintain high workforce participation, are more productive, and grow faster economically.

- Ageing does not lower workforce participation in general. Since 2012 there have been more full-time workers aged over 65 than under 20.

- Low net immigration of between 50-80,000 permanent migrants per year can alter the age structure over the long-term by stabilising the population.

- Low net immigration increases GDP per capita and wage growth.

- High net immigration above this 50-80,000 amount has almost no additional effect on changing the age structure and simply increases the total population.

- Most of the increase in permanent migration since the early 2000s has been through the skilled migration program.

- This program primarily benefits the migrants themselves and increases wage competition for other workers.

- A focus on skilled immigration fosters a “brain drain” from developing countries, reducing human welfare.

- There is a real economic cost to high population growth due to the diseconomies of scale inherent in rapid infrastructure expansion.

- There is a real cost from environmental degradation due to development to accommodate much higher populations.

- The high costs of population growth are often ignored, as immigration policy is a federal matter, while infrastructure provision is predominantly a state and council matter.

- Population growth in general dilutes ownership of our environmental endowments, mineral wealth, fisheries, wildlife, and national parks.

- The political capital and resource devoted to managing high growth have an opportunity cost in terms of solving other social problems such as homelessness, indigenous disadvantage, mental health, and other social services.

Full report:

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/AgeingMythReport_vPUBLISH.pdf

Spot of Pete you old mucker!. Its going to be fun watching these kids solve the problems ahead, without their ability to read, write or count! I recall my first 'trial' at Macquarie Uni back in 1990, when I had to mark 500+ essays a month after landing from Liverpool Uni (UK). I failed 40%, purely due to the unintelligible nature of the work. This kids are now senior managers somewhere, and may even have taught/indoctrinated this current generation of "Green Meanie CCCC" (Child Climate Change Cultists) activists who strike on schooldays, not weekends or holidays.

Compulsory contraception, Licencing of Child birth eligibility and the Chinese One Child Policy are starting to look good to this aging (59 now) "old fart".

Glad your mind is still sharp and focused. Cheers