Ageing populations and pro-natal policies

Ageing populations is one of the most pressing demographic challenges for many MEDCs today, because of the socio-economic pressures the unbalanced population structure puts on the country, which I feel like I have spent half my life writing about. 

In the UK, whilst we do have an ageing population, which we most certainly need to address, a recent article in the telegraph points out that we are actually ageing slower than most of the rest of Europe. For example, it states that countries like Germany and Italy have around 20% of the population being over 65 and of retirement age, compared to just 16% in the UK. Japan however, has 22% of its population over 65 years of age, which is starting to cause the country real issues, hence why they have introduced pro-natal policies to try and increase the fertility rate and balance the population and dependency ratio, which the following video i made explores:

Another take on Britain's ageing population

Hello all, just thought I'd share with you a thrilling article concerning ageing populations I came across the other day. It's by Esther Boserup Rantzen concerning the retirement age for women, particularly in the television presenting sector. She expresses that she is tired of the elderly being seen as a burden on young people and the NHS, and goes on to argue that in fact elderly people do contribute to the economy and general well-being of the country, pointing out that it is in fact old people who allow many of their sons and daughters to work by looking after their grandchildren; which if was left solely to the parents, they wouldn't be able to have such demanding but rewarding careers and would instead have to stay at home looking after the kids. It is also retired volunteers who keep charitable organisations running, and she even uses the example that the "ablest monarch in the world" is our majesty the queen, currently at 84 years of age and still going strong.

Whilst not all the article is necessarily relevant to our ageing population (despite being one of the top results on google news), I urge you to take some time to read the rest of it, as it really is a very interesting and insightful read, which we have come to expect from papers such as the Daily Mail, the respectable publication that it is. :')

Esther's Daily Mail Article on ageing population

Bill Gates: cutting deaths, cutting births.

Bill Gates is known to be a big contributor to aid in less economically developed countries, and uses his wealth to help poor children live better lives. In a recent publicity statement, he has been promoting the amazing effects of child vaccination against deadly diseases from which thousands die unnecessarily from each year, but more relevantly the affect this has on population growth, and consequentially the country's economic development as a whole. Demographers argue that decreasing the amount of child deaths, instead of increasing population growth, actually slows it down. Because more children will survive, it puts less pressure on couples to have large families to ensure that enough of them survive to look after them in the future, and therefore allows them to have fewer children. It also means the family has more money to spend on those children, which increases their chances of being educated and getting a decent job when they grow up. So Mr Gates is absolutely right to try to improve the health care of children in developing countries, not just because of the obvious saving lives, but also because the knock-on effect on the country's population as a whole is a huge step forward in advancing through the demographic stages and become more developed.

China set to finally allow a second child?

After a generation of enforcing the most extreme form of family planning in history, it seems China may finally be beginning to relax the infamous one child policy. The policy, which was initiated in an attempt to slow China's rapidly increasing population in the 1980s, while in many ways being successful at this, brought with it many controversies and other population problems for China. One of the biggest of these being the increased proportion of males, due to the Chinese culture having a preference for baby boys, and therfore many couples who were only allowed one child, were determined that this child be a boy. This means that all these baby boys will struggle to find a bride from the disproportionate amount of girls. In some rural areas, farmers are alreday being allowed to have another child if their first is female, and now pilot projects are being introduced in cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin in an attempt to start to reverse this crippling disproportion.

The one child policy has also fastforwarded China into having an aging population. With the medical care to keep death rates low, and the young population being restricted by the policy, China is beginning to experience the problem facing many MEDCs - but before it has properly developed. So while the one child policy was able to slow the growth of China's ever rapidly increasing population in the late 20th century, it has brought with it a whole set of consequences that the country are now having to resolve -  and relaxes like those being introduced in some of the country's largest cities are only a small step towards rectifying a hugely corrupt population structure.