Using Your Cane if You’re Still Able

As birthrates fall in many developed nations, as pressure grows to keep populations from decimating social support structures and food supplies in developing nations, as the cost of rearing a child in impaired economic times pushes that decision into later years for many or even negates the intent of having any children at all, there has been a bulge at in the growth among the oldest members of our planet. “For the 60-plus crowd, the annual growth rate is three times that of the world population as a whole. For the first time in history, there are more people over age 60 than under age 5.” Clyde Haberman writing in the October 9^th New York Times.

On the extreme end, nations like Japan are contracting so fast that they will lose almost a third of their entire population by 2050 if current trends continue. Fully a 30% of their current population is “older.” The U.S. numbers of older citizens are half that but rising. For American-born women, they are reproducing at 1.9 births per woman, below the 2.1 rate considered essential for full replacement (zero growth). In a world of senior discounts, global businesses are losing more money. We can live with that! In a world of government and private pensions – particularly the “unfunded” kind (most of them) – and elder healthcare, essentially an increasing number of younger workers are needed to support the litany of retirees straining the system. We are going to have to learn to live with that.

Within a decade, there will be a billion of such over-60s. By 2050, the projections are for double that number. We living longer and having fewer babies. True older workers are retiring later, but that just deprives those entering the job market from opportunities that once were routinely available when older workers retired, a bigger strain on the job market. Further, those younger workers who do find meaningful employment will be charged with funding the going-forward elder benefits in both social security as well as other public and private pension plans, where benefits were promised but funds were not contributed along the way. And think of the massive healthcare costs among the elderly!

With the mobility we have seen across society, with crowded urban dwellings not providing extra space for elder parents and grandparents, the concept of extended families taking care of their own is a rare historical reference for most. Fixed incomes don’t fare well in a world of increasing prices. Decaying infrastructure makes getting around impossible for many seniors. Something’s gotta give. We cannot become a world of elders picking through garbage cans looking for food, sleeping in ramshackle homes or setting themselves on ice drifts to die “when the time comes.”

As they say, getting older is not for the faint of heart. “Women on average outlive men; many, having never worked outside the home, struggle financially on their own. Age discrimination is a constant. Older people are likely to be regarded as a burden more than as an asset. (They are also the targets of more stale codger jokes than even Henny Youngman could have supplied.) They are vulnerable to violent predators. And, obviously, their health problems multiply. Old age, as another old line has it, is not for sissies.” NY Times.

We are a nation that appears to be eager to write off large segments of our population. Damn the elderly. Children can do with crowded classrooms, steep college tuition hikes and lowering educational standards. Americans should live without healthcare unless they can afford it, many say. Infrastructure is a luxury we cannot afford to fix, expand or replace. Research for new cures, new science and new technology can wait until we are able to afford it… and then it needs to be relegated to the private sector. But then, our military – with a rather inglorious track record in international campaigns that already spends 41% of the earth’s total military budget – just isn’t big enough. Is this the country you want to live in?

I’m Peter Dekom, and I am still staggered by the complete in ability of so many Americans to be able to prioritize policies that they really will need for themselves.