2024年5月28日发(作者：)

Into the Unknown

The world has never seen population ageing before. Can it cope?

[A] Until the early 1990s nobody much thought about whole populations getting

older. The UNhad the foresight to convene a ―world assembly on ageing back

in 1982, but that came andwent. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that

something big was happening. In a reportentitled ―Averting the Old Age Crisis,

it argued that pension arrangements in most countrieswere unsustainable.

[B] For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, sounded

the had titles like Young vs Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming

Generational Storm, and theirmessage was blunt: health-care systems were

heading for the rocks, pensioners were takingyoung people to the cleaners,

and soon there would be intergenerational warfare.

[C] Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least because a lot

more is knownabout the subject. Books, conferences and research papers have

multiplied. Internationalorganisations such as the OECD and the EU issue

regular reports. Population ageing is onevery agenda, from G8 economic

conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forumplans to consider the

future of pensions and health care at its prestigious Davos conferenceearly

next year. The media, including this newspaper, are giving the subject

extensivecoverage.

[D] Whether all that attention has translated into sufficient action is another

ments in rich countries now accept that their pension and

health-care promises will soonbecome unaffordable, and many of them have

embarked on reforms, but so far only is not surprising: politicians

with an eye on the next election will hardly rush to introduceunpopular

measures that may not bear fruit for years, perhaps decades.

[E] The outline of the changes needed is clear. To avoid fiscal (财政的)

meltdown, publicpensions and health-care provision will have to be reined

back severely and taxes may have togo up. By far the most effective method

to restrain pension spending is to give people theopportunity to work longer,

because it increases tax revenues and reduces spending onpensions at the

same time. It may even keep them alive longer. John Rother, the AARP's headof

policy and strategy, points to studies showing that other things being equal,

people whoremain at work have lower death rates than their retired peers.

[F] Younger people today mostly accept that they will have to work for longer

and that theirpensions will be less generous. Employers still need to be

persuaded that older workers areworth holding on to. That may be because they

have had plenty of younger ones to choosefrom, partly thanks to the post-war

baby-boom and partly because over the past few decadesmany more women

have entered the labour force, increasing employers' choice. But thereservoir

of women able and willing to take up paid work is running low, and

thebaby-boomers are going grey.

[G] In many countries immigrants have been filling such gaps in the labour force

as have alreadyemerged (and remember that the real shortage is still around

ten years off). Immigration in thedeveloped world is the highest it has ever been,

and it is making a useful difference. Instill-fertile America it currently accounts

for about 40% of total population growth, and infast-ageing western Europe

for about 90%.

[H] On the face of it, it seems the perfect solution. Many developing countries

have lots ofyoung people in need of jobs; many rich countries need helping

hands that will boost taxrevenues and keep up economic growth. But over the

next few decades labour forces in richcountries are set to shrink so much that

inflows of immigrants would have to increaseenormously to compensate: to

at least twice their current size in western Europe's mostyouthful countries,

and three times in the older ones. Japan would need a large multiple of thefew

immigrants it has at present. Public opinion polls show that people in most rich

countriesalready think that immigration is too high. Further big increases would

be politically unfeasible.

[I] To tackle the problem of ageing populations at its root, old countries would

have torejuvenate (使年轻) themselves by having more of their own children.

A number of them havetried, some more successfully than others. But it is not

a simple matter of offering financialincentives or providing more child care.

Modern urban life in rich countries is not well adapted tolarge families. Women

find it hard to combine family and career. They often compromise byhaving

just one child.

[J] And if fertility in ageing countries does not pick up? It will not be the end

of the world, atleast not for quite a while yet, but the world will slowly become

a different place. Older societiesmay be less innovative and more strongly

disinclined to take risks than younger ones. By2025 at the latest, about half

the voters in America and most of those in western Europeancountries will be

over 50 and older people turn out to vote in much greater numbers thanyounger

ones. Academic studies have found no evidence so far that older voters have

usedtheir power at the ballot box to push for policies that specifically benefit

them, though if infuture there are many more of them they might start doing