Concerns about an aging population are overblown, and society must learn to appreciate and benefit from a “vast cohort of healthy, active, older and creative adults”, a leading population expert has said.
Although experts and pressure groups expressed concern about falling birth ratesemphasizing economic and health concerns, others are more optimistic, arguing that the growth of the “silver economy” brings new opportunities for growth.
Professor Sarah Harper, Director of the Oxford Population Institute Agingstated that in two-thirds of the world's countries, fertility levels are already below the replacement level needed to maintain the same population size in the next generation, and that aging of the majority of the population is inevitable.
But she said it has brought some positive results. Harper said: “This is a success because every child born will have the opportunity – or should have the opportunity – to be highly educated, healthy and live a long, healthy life.”
Recognizing that there will be people living into their 80s and 90s who will become frail and require care, Harper said a major opportunity is to benefit from improved health and education for older people, especially those aged 50 to 70.
She said: “There are some problems. [to an ageing population]but there are also enormous opportunities, and instead of trying to resist it, stop it, or deflect it, we should look for those opportunities because we have a huge cohort of healthy, active, older, creative adults.
“And because we are still stuck in 20th-century institutions that don’t value them or benefit from them, we need to create new ways of living and working that allow us to take advantage of the benefits of this huge group of adults.”
Experts emphasized the importance of worker retraining, flexible work arrangements and a general change in attitudes towards older workers. Harper said it was also important to address inequalities in health and education so that all older people could make valuable contributions.
Official figures show The UK's population is growing, mainly as a result of migration but also aging: by 2072, 27% of the population is expected to be aged 65 or over.
Although the baby boomer cohort is particularly large, creation of a demographic cluster This will significantly increase the size of older age groups in the coming decades, Harper said younger generations are smaller and more similar in size. This means that in the future the age structure of the population will resemble a skyscraper rather than a traditional pyramid.
Harper said: “Providing high-quality, affordable child care is key to unlocking the potential of both young and old.”
However, even Scandinavian countries, which emphasize gender equality and positive parenting, have failed to raise overall fertility rates above replacement level.
Harper said: “We have to say that there are ways to support those, particularly women, who want to have children and that includes things like good jobs, good housing, good childcare, good gender equality.
“But there will always be a group of women, perhaps a growing one, who have decided that for various reasons they are not going to have children. And in some ways we have to accept that and work with it.”
While Harper said concerns about Covid, the climate crisis and overpopulation could be factors in why some chose not to have children, she said there were other reasons, such as a reluctance to view having children as an obligatory part of an adult woman's life.
“I think it’s a really big psychological shift,” she said.
Harper added that the idea that a country needs a high birth rate is rooted in the outdated idea that a country needs a lot of young people to defend it. “We don't really need anymore. The world has changed,” she said. “High-income countries don't need children. We just need to change the structure, particularly the economic structure.”
Harper said people aged 50 to 70 are an “amazing resource” with valuable skills for the knowledge economy, and many are willing and able to work longer.
She said: “People also know financially that if they're going to retire at 60 and then live another 40 years… it's just not sustainable for the pension system we have. One approach to pension reform that doesn't disadvantage people through lower incomes, poor health and less education would be to link the state pension to national insurance contributions rather than age.”
Harper said some have drawn parallels with the rise of women in the workforce.
She said: “In the '50s and early '60s, people said, 'Well, what are we going to do if all these women enter the workforce?' What are we going to do? It will completely ruin everything.” But of course it happened, and now in many countries it is taken for granted. [that] Of course, women work equally with men. Well, the same goes for older people.”
