The World Now Has More Seniors Than Young People - for the First Time In History (ibtimes.com) 139
"There are now more seniors in the world than young children," reports the International Business Times, citing a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau report. And it warns that "The share of the population aged 65 and over is projected to nearly double, from 10.5 percent (about 1 in 10 people) in 2025 to 19.6 percent (about 1 in 5 people) by 2060."
The world is expected to add another 2 billion people from 2025 to 2060, increasing global population from around 8 billion to around 10 billion... "Over one-half of that growth (1.148 billion) is projected to come from an increase in the population aged 65 and over," the report states. "By contrast, the population at younger ages (age 0-19) is projected to stay relatively constant due to persistent low fertility. As the size of the older population grows rapidly and the youthful age population remains roughly the same, the percentage of the population aged 65 and over is projected to increase."
The report notes that the birthrate in 71 percent of countries is now below the replacement level of 2.1. China, in particular, has seen its birthrate plummet. In 2023, birth rates per woman in China hit 1.06... Aside from lower birth rates, the fact that people are living longer is one of the primary driving factors. The report notes that people are also living a healthier, more active life for a longer time.
The report notes that the birthrate in 71 percent of countries is now below the replacement level of 2.1. China, in particular, has seen its birthrate plummet. In 2023, birth rates per woman in China hit 1.06... Aside from lower birth rates, the fact that people are living longer is one of the primary driving factors. The report notes that people are also living a healthier, more active life for a longer time.
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There are a whole lot of guys named Benjamin Button, apparently.
old age dependency ratio (Score:3)
The problem manifests itself in that politicians cannot vote for any policy which does not preserve or increase the money transfer payment (taxes) from workers to retired persons and any policy which does not keep or increase medical funding for old-age care.
Essentially, starving government services, wages and opportunity for building a family from younger workers.
Wikipedia - Dependency Ratio - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
"A high dependency ratio can cause serious problems for a country if a large prop
Re: population growth is 65 and over? (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine that, an arbitary demographic's size can increase without being born.
Re: population growth is 65 and over? (Score:5, Insightful)
Every time a 64-year-old has a birthday, the 65-and-over group's size increases by one. No rebirth required.
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Every time a 64-year-old has a birthday, the 65-and-over group's size increases by one. No rebirth required.
It's not so much the ones that make to 65 that make it grow, it's the number that don't die of old age until they are much older than folks in the past died of old age. Over the last 50 years the median life expectancy has increased by 6 to 8 years. Meaning instead of living to 62 to 71 folks now live to 73 to 79. The demographics of group have grown, because they are living longer after 65. It's that increase in lifespan causing the group of folks over 65 to grow. And in the last 50 years that incre
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Who knew people could be born aged 65 and over. Last time I checked, people 65 and over were alive 65 years ago.
Not really firing on all neurons today are we. Have a think about how demographics works and try again tomorrow.
Adam and Eve (Score:1)
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That's just a units conversion error from Cuneiform to Aramaic. The Mars Climate Orbiter didn't learn from their flub.
Wait, what??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Over one-half of that growth (1.148 billion) is projected to come from an increase in the population aged 65 and over,
The growth in population is mostly due to older people?
Wait, older people are already here. They aren't causing the growth. Well, maybe you could say that because they aren't dying as young, they stick around longer, leading to population increases.
Re:Wait, what??? (Score:4, Informative)
Think of the categories as fixed, and the people moving *through* them. Over 65s are exiting the category at a lower rate.
Re: Wait, what??? (Score:2)
Think of the categories as fixed, and the people moving *through* them. Over 65s are exiting the category at a lower rate.
Uh.. more people are entering category? And probably even more people are exiting it to 66?
64 years ago there were more babies born than there was 65 years ago. And 63 years ago there were even more. You see there was this boom of uh babies, where the birth rates rose year over year for some time and then started declining to where we are today. These are the baby boomers.
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Obviously. I cannot tell whether the people asking that question are really dumb or just being assholes.
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Wait, older people are already here. They aren't causing the growth. Well, maybe you could say that because they aren't dying as young, they stick around longer, leading to population increases.
Most older people, even poorer ones, got all the recommended vaccines before this administration started scaring people off them so they aren't dying off fast enough. While that was initially a boon at the voting booth for the administration, it's going to be a relatively short-term problem for those who dislike funding Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, etc... As far as the youngsters, they're on their own. /satirical-political-rant
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Over one-half of that growth (1.148 billion) is projected to come from an increase in the population aged 65 and over,
The growth in population is mostly due to older people?
Wait, older people are already here. They aren't causing the growth. Well, maybe you could say that because they aren't dying as young, they stick around longer, leading to population increases.
So you're saying a 64 year old isn't "old" until after they turn 65?
Re:Wait, what??? (Score:4)
Exactly. I'm 60, so I'm not old.
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At this point most of the population growth is people living longer, not births. More people alive at the same time, even as the birth rate declines.
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I get it. Still, the *only* way population increases, is through births. The increase we are now seeing, already happened. It's just that population number increases and decreases are what you call "lagging indicators." They are numbers that reflect _past_ changes.
Rewriting with AI Slop (Score:2, Interesting)
This structural demographic shift is driven by two concurrent factors:
* Demographic Aging and Longevity: Of the projected 2 billion net population increase, 1.148 bil
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It's crazy to realize that China had a higher birth rate when they had the one-child policy.
That won't last long. (Score:3, Interesting)
The situation is certainly no reason to seek population growth which is purely bad for all but rich real estate developers.
Population decline is pure win.
Re:That won't last long. (Score:4, Funny)
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Population decline is pure win.
Not quite. But a slow reduction to, say, 2-3B will probably be a needed survival factor over the next 100 years or so while food growing gets really hard.
Not unless we remake the economy (Score:3)
You can't really have 1% of the population choking off the other 99% without a constant massive spike in productivity and
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All our social systems require more people paying into the system then there are receiving from the system. Think of the entire population as a pyramid. Our pyramid is going from a wide base with a small crown to a more narrow base with a larger crown.
As our social systems completely rely on an ever growing base, we'll be screwed before long. This is one of the reasons social security is doomed without an increase in taxes and a decrease in spending. Hence the very unpopular political truth is we'll need to
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At the same time, improving technology has biisted productivity. Social Security will be fine for a long time if it captures some of that enhanced productivity rather than letting the 1% put it all in their pockets.
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Re: That won't last long. (Score:2)
The question is not if we want a shrinking population or not. It's if we want to achieve it by acknowledging the facts and having less children, or by i
Re: That won't last long. (Score:2)
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Only if we can adjust our economies to cope with population decline. Otherwise the only people who will benefit are the already super wealthy.
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This has nothing to do with realestate developers. The entire West (and significant parts of the East) have built fundamental economic systems around a principle of of the young funding the old, paying for a generation not by investment over time, but by current earnings from the previous generation.
When the current young tax paying generation covers social security benefits for the old generation it will be felt by EVERYONE, most probably the poor first because of the cultural "fuck-them-poors" that goes o
Move them all to Florida then nuke it from orbit (Score:2)
Good news everybody! (Score:2)
Now we can finally stop thinking about the children and start thinking about the elderly!
Let's start by bringing back Eckerds.
Re:Think of elderly! not children (Score:1)
Shit, now MAGA will ban elderly LGBTQ+
More Seniors Than Young People (Score:5, Funny)
So... the U.S. Congress *is* a representative government? :-)
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People live longer and healthier lives than people did two centuries ago. You wouldn't see that. You weren't alive two centuries ago. The existence that you take for granted IS the longer and healthier existence than humanity used to have.
The boomers were not somehow more evil than any other generation of people. Humanity has always been full of good and bad elements and every generation had to face unique challenges and adapt to whatever they inherited from THEIR prior generation. It's always easy to
Re:representative government (Score:1)
and many are brain-dead just like Mitch.
In the future (Score:3)
- Social Security in many countries does not have a large cash reserve, meaning future expenses becomes bigger than current revenues. Fewer people working means less social security for old people.
- Fewer people working means less money for governments that get most of their revenue from wages
- As the elderly die, there will be less pressure on the supply of manufacturing/services, food resources, housing resources and debt/loan resources because of reduced demand and a smaller population inheriting high-value assets (buildings, investment funds). It will be an end to the scarcity that has defined government policy for 1,000 years.
If governments don't move away from a wage-driven taxation system, and education/healthcare/welfare systems demanding part-time employment, they will be an oppressive expense to the working class, will incite civil unrest and revolution and be slaughtered by the people they failed to serve.
Diapers (Score:5, Interesting)
In Japan, the volume of adult diapers sold exceeds the volume of child diapers every year. This has been happening for more than 10 years.
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That actually makes economic sense!
Throughout most of history, young children have always received hand--me-downs from their elders!
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Japan has successfully achieved a trickle-down economy.
I am not even a senior! (Score:2)
I have IBS and pee a lot. :(
"Gross" metric tons (Score:1)
"Volume"? Uh, wrong metric
Time for a new Stephen King novel... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Unfortunately young people don't vote, at least not in high enough numbers for politicians to care. In any country where the system doesn't account for that, through things like mandatory voting or proper proportional representation where every vote counts, young people get screwed.
For example, in the UK the state pension has a "triple lock". It goes up by the higher of inflation, average wages, or 2.5%. Often that means it goes up more than wages, and the tax burden on working age people is now becoming un
Re: Time for a new Stephen King novel... (Score:2)
Just in time to get screwed again (Score:2)
Just in time to get screwed again. Growing up the boomers took everything. Now that I am getting older and waited for my turn, we will flip it to where old people just dont matter and get nothing. So I can be screwed again!
Took? (Score:3)
You'll have excess support they built and by dying soon will cease to need.
What do you imagine was somehow "taken" and is somehow lost? The fewer people the better quality of life. The sooner the US population starts shrinking the more assets to go around. Growth is bad. It only happened because humans were too stupid not to breed like rats.
Society is quite efficient at redistributing assets of the dead. How do you imagine your predecessors got land and homes? Death solves far more problems than it creates.
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How do you imagine your predecessors got land and homes?
Go back far enough and the land was just sitting there vacant waiting for someone to stake their claim on it. Provided of course that you didn't die of dysentery first.
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Boomers did take a lot. They burned a lot of cheap fossil fuels and did very well out of it, leaving the mess for younger generations to clean up, for example. They enjoyed massive increases in wealth due to house prices going from 2-3x average income, to 12-13x. That won't be repeated, we won't have houses costing 30-50x average income in another few decades, it was a one-off benefit for them.
Mistakes were made. The assumption was that every generation would be bigger and wealthier than the last, but the o
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It was the opposite here. 70s houses are better built, much much larger, and more desirable than new builds.
I forsee ... (Score:2)
I Must Be Early (Score:2)
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They are obvious, no? No real need to discuss them.
Good (Score:2)
Population growth has to stop or things will go really, really, really bad. Especially with the seriously decreased food-growing capabilities thanks to climate change coming in the next decades.
Obviously, the religious fuckups will disagree. They always crave more victims.
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It's not just the leftist. Business is happy to turn a blind eye if it provides them with vulnerable desperate workers. Republicans just can't say that part out loud.
Baby Boomer Generation? (Score:2)
The ripple effect of the baby boom generation is finally senior citizens.
What will be the headlines when the boomers start to die off en mass?
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After boomers are gone, demographically, the millennials will be in charge.
They've ruined everything else from bar soap to paper napkins to casual dining chains, and now they'll ruin politics.
Obviously the new headline will be "Gen Alpha is ruining full length movies".
Good thing robots are taking over (Score:2)
I'm guessing... (Score:2)
...that they are not counting the 3rd world countries
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More people aged 65 and over than 5 or under (Score:1)
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A case for AI and robotics? (Score:2)
If the pyramid scheme which is the economy is now collapsing, then older people are going to be screwed. There won't be enough younger people to take care of them and to provide the food they need; especially since with AGW all the strong and able-bodied will likely be needed just to ensure that humanity can survive the extreme heat, drastic storms, lower farm yields, etc. And mortality will likely increase, because of heat, extreme weather, and related consequences.
But if AI and robotics advance enough and
Or put another way, seniors will bankrupt us (Score:2)
So with half the population past 65 at some point in the near future, we'll likely go bankrupt funding their healthcare. Then, after we go bankrupt buying grandma an extra year of life, we'll experience massive population collapse.
I'm once again WISHING I was already a senior because the shit show that gets left behind in 20-30 years is going to be horrible. Gen Z will really be SOL when they reach senior age, as they'll literally be no one to take care of them.
Good thing we got the sexbot..ahem robotic car
I once feared the future (Score:2)
Now I am relieved to know that I will be a grumpy old man surrounded by grumpy old people that don't get me.
Soylent Green (Score:2)
Who wrote the report, ChatGPT? (Score:2)
The world is expected to add another 2 billion people from 2025 to 2060, increasing global population from around 8 billion to around 10 billion... "Over one-half of that growth (1.148 billion) is projected to come from an increase in the population aged 65 and over,"
How the hell does that happen? Are people born already age 65 plus?