Europeans over 65 will outnumber those under 15 next year
Europeans over 65 will outnumber those under 15 next year
The World Health Organisation said it will bring 'new social, economic and health challenges' in order to make the best of an ageing population
And those anxious and xenophobic motherfuckers gonna live for sooo much longer than their parents. They easily gonna leech from my salary for the next two decades while I will certainly not get a dime from the generations after me. That generation lived of the wealth of the generations before them AND after them.
Just go and make more kids bro
And everyone is afraid of immigration. It's bizarre.
and investing in the young
Fuck you I got mine
We are afraid of immigration because there is so few housing that bringing people will just add to the pressure and make rents even more ridiculously expensive . Also, in my country (Portugal), these workers accept working for less and live in miserable conditions (overcrowded homes, tents outside of Lisbon, etc), making it worse for everyone else, causing an exodus of qualified people and a flood of “tourism workers” because salaries just not increase when there are people accepting to work for less.
Meanwhile our public services are collapsing left and right because qualified people just leave and there are so many new people trying to access public healthcare etc.
This is not the black and white immigration is good/bad you are making it out to be .
I'm from Portugal also and it's not immigration that is driving high rent prices. That's a disingenuous position. Golden visas and Airbnb have contributed MUCH more to this as well as the liberalization of rents coupled with low new housing projects.
The workers that accept low salaries are mostly seasonal workers and they don't compete with locals for decent housing and if you were honest you would mention that most of the time you have plenty of them living in the same space. Again, not occupying a lot of the housing destined for locals. I don't see locals eager to go live in Odemira in the houses occupied by seasonal workers or in Martim Moniz in degraded housing.
Also from Portugal and did you really just say that the problem with immigration is that they get exploited and then everyone ELSE suffers?
I mean i think you see what’s wrong with that.
Also without immigrants Portugal would be completely fucked because all the young people are leaving the country for better jobs in Europe. Someone needs to pick up the slack otherwise it’s just old people and a couple of children.
Also Portugal has a ton of houses. We are above average in houses per capita iirc. We have a problem with salaries and an over dependence on tourism.
Imagine claiming your issue isn't with immigrants then immediately listing all the reasons immigrants are to blame for the actions of the capitalists that exploit them, and you, and the government that allows it.. 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
This is not the black and white immigration is good/bad you are making it out to be .
no, it's just you who is wilfully ignorant. And afraid. Because of your wilful ignorance.
I'm not against immigration but it's no solution. You're in Europe. You're trying to replace a workforce that has free education, in a place with high quality education infrastructure, therefore most of them have bachelors and probably at least one or more masters degrees, with essentially illiterate (and i mean this with all due respect) people from a completely different culture who are not prepared to do anything remotely useful for at least 10 years, probably more.
I've literally had migrant refugees from Lebanon, Somalia, Eritrea, Morocco and such as flatmates in Brussels. Some of them are my close friends. They are not remotely prepared to take over 90% of European jobs. You either need social skills, labor skills, language skills or technical skills which they simply do not have. If i was in their shoes, it would take me decades to catch up to how Europeans work.
The migrants come here for what ? Uber eats ? How are they supposed to support themselves ? With government integration money we don't have available ? But say we figure it out and they live and then they will have kids one day. Those kids will behave exactly like the local population. They will go to University, they will be highly qualified, they will be socially adapted to the place, culture and language and, they will also not have kids, just like the locals. So which problem did these migrants solve then ?
So the issue here isn't that we lack people in Europe. It's that our economic doctrine is deficient. We need to change the doctrine, not the people. Immigration will not solve this problem, it will perpetuate it. Young people not having kids is an economic issue that will still happen whether you have a European young person there or a Iraqi young person there. You can't simply transplant a young couple from a country with very high birth rates in a totally different part of the world, subjected to an entirely different set of circumstances and expect them to be the same in Europe. That's not how this works.
with essentially illiterate (and i mean this with all due respect) people from a completely different culture who are not prepared to do anything remotely useful for at least 10 years, probably more.
You're talking shit. Immigrants make up 20% of the NHS in the UK, and loads also work in the care sector, those are vital jobs and you have to be literate. Most immigrants I've met speak better English than the local toe rags.
Those kids will behave exactly like the local population. They will go to University, they will be highly qualified, they will be socially adapted to the place, culture and language and, they will also not have kids, just like the local. So which problem did these migrants solve then ?
The lack of young workers?
most of them have bachelors
Only 30% of people in Europe have bachelors degrees, about the same as the u.s. Thats higher than in developing countries, say India at 8%, but a majority of people in both countries don't have degrees.
It's a common misconception by those with tertiary education in the first world that everyone else has tertiary education because they only talk to people in their social class with tertiary education.
So what I hear you're saying is that education is the solution.
We could educate immigrants, which will take some time. We could also educate the Europeans so they don't take the jobs that requires shorter educations. Either way we will need the immigrants to solve the current demand.
The problem is that the same thing was tried in the 1970s and it didn't turn out well when the demand for low skill workers decreased again. We already know that the demand will drop again in 20-30 years, so we should already now focus on educating the immigrants, so they can function in society after the low skill jobs are gone.
Another thing is that it's not like we can stop immigration. The climate changes will result in massive immigration whether we "allow" it or not. They're not going to sit and die outside imaginary lines on the ground.
IMO, the only realistic option is to accept and start educating immigrants.
Putting the side the whole moral aspect of it, the only way to make importing less well educated people function in most European countries would be a huge investment in Adult Dducation, and we're in the late-neoliberal political period were governments (some more, some less) have been busy cutting taxes and hence public expenses, and typically Adult Education is one of the first to have been cut.
The very people who have set up open door immigration policies claiming that we need them because of the aging of the population refuse to invest in those who they made our guests to become fully productive and integrated citizens and instead are happy to for them to live in or near poverty working low-value and highly insecure jobs such as food delivery driver for some exploitative "Startup" that doesn't even pay taxes.
This shit isn't at all being done for the reasons we are told it's being done.
Those kids will behave exactly like the local population.
Guess you haven't been to the UK
Not when you consider that so many are rather old and afraid of change (something which correlates with age).
Many comments below (->above?) about housing. But it seems to me, the problem in much of Europe is that many old people hang on to large half-empty family houses, so over 65s are occupying a lot more space than under 15s (although the latter have more energy, need space to play ...). It's a pity they blame immigrants for this.
For me it's more a cherry on a cake. We already have a housing problem for a couple years. Most young starters can't afford to purchase/rent a house, so that look for cheaper options. Those cheaper options are given away to immigrants because of emergency housing laws. This in turn causes less houses for the population that can't afford new houses. It's not just a problem of immigration (not even that much) it's a problem that existing empty houses go way over the affordable price and on top of that the immigrants get the houses for free.
So yeah focus all that and I can see why people blame immigration, but it's absolutely not the only cause. I would prefer it more if the government limits the prices of housing, but this causes investment in housing to drop as well. It's a dirty vicious greedy circle that points to immigrants as the easy target.
I should also add that some immigrants don't accept other temporary options and want a bigger house for free, whilst the population pays 150-200%. That also causes friction.
If you look into the issues caused by (mass) immigration or related to that then it makes much more sense imo.
The old folks had a good time. Younger generation can't afford sht.
And now they've spent all their money just in time to rely on social security from the young ones. Try and screw us from every angle. Most selfish and greedy generation that existed.
Scary though they will be making the rules for a long time to come yet
That was my first thought: They can and do vote, and now they're a populational majority as well as a statistical one at the ballot box. That can no longer be combatted by encouraging younger generations to vote.
If only society was designed around looking after people instead of infinite competition, maybe this wouldn't be so much of a problem
We have the technology
And abundant resources. But our approach to things like this will not change as long as money is king.
2023 is the hottest year ever in record. Everything suggests that it won't hold that record for long. Why would I bring children to this world to suffer the hell that 2050 will be?
Because at least you are thinking about such problems (unlike too many). I thought similarly back in 1998, many records broken since, we're still here, now glad my children are too and getting educated, to help society get through this. By the way the original post is from Ireland which may not get so much warmer (depends thermohaline circulation...) - maybe stormier, although much (not all) of europe will still be nice to live in 2050, adaptation may include many people relocating.
If your in a developed nation with a decent military then you will be among the last to feel the pain of environmental collapse. Most of the world is what we would consider hellish right now, yet people still find a way to laugh and love. Watch these poor souls recycling electronics in Africa. Watch bald and bankrupt in bengladesh. Most people alive today live like this and it doesn't stop them from living life. We all adapt to our conditions, its all relative to our individual experience and what we consider "normal" in our lives. Your condition potentially getting worse shouldn't stop you from having kids, as your condition probably has a long way to go to get down to where most of the population is at currently. Whether you enjoy the ride, fight the collapse, or hail the apocalypse, someones gotta be around to keep this party going. If their born into late stage environmental collapse with nations fighting over the last scraps of arable land and drinkable water, well then that becomes their "normal" and theyll still find something to laugh about and someone to love. But at the end of the day it is your choice and you should do as you see best.
Most of the world is what we would consider hellish right now, yet people still find a way to laugh and love. Watch these poor souls recycling electronics in Africa. Watch bald and bankrupt in bengladesh. Most people alive today live like this and it doesn't stop them from living life.
You really threw bald people in there as the miserable, wretched of the earth.
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And that's why conservatives get elected. And since more and more young vote for right-wing parties we're in for a real shitshow.
Yeah. To be honest most liberal and social democrat governments are playing right into the hands of the right wing too.
Too afraid to crack down on the far right, but still too conservative to commit to large public spending on housing and sustainable infrastructure. Or in Germany's case, nuclear energy.
I have hope for those organzing outside of electoralism, those organzing within it in the West are in for another rude wake up call soon. They keep ignoring them.
Westerners are not more tolerant or intolerant then any other people on earth, we generally just have higher standards of living as a result of economic and military hegemony. As that continues to decline for more and more previously " wealthy " people the fascist radiclization will get worse in the West.
We need new ways of living and bold ideas. The far right nor neoliberals can offer that to people. Liberals will tolerate dissidents but they will never take meaningful action on the issiues of class, the military industrial complex or encomcis for the most part. It needs to change from the outside in.
Or in Germany's case, nuclear energy.
You know that not even the former operators of the German nuclear power plants are in favour of going back to nuclear? Even if we decide NOW to invest in nuclear power again on a grand scale - which makes no sense at all economically - it won't help the energy transition, because planning and construction takes decades and is irrational in terms of costs. However, I agree with you that it was a strategic mistake on the part of the former Merkel government not to shut down coal-fired power plants first but to shut nuclear - but this does not change the current path dependencies of the German energy sector at all!
Just prepare properly.
Take 5 minutes of your day to excersie a small speech about how you never knew anything, nobody knew anything in fact and we were just following orders. If we all feign ignorance we can pretend like this happened under our watch.
And it's this exact problem that will get solved with the immigration from climate change. Europe is going to get more African migrants fleeing climate change.
Yes, this seems inevitable, and given Europe's relative historical contribution to climate change, I think we have a moral obligation to welcome some, as (to some extent) their right, not charity. An issue, however, is that immigrants tend to gather in crowded hot cities near sea-level, just the places we should plan to slowly depopulate, while it's rarer to see African faces in sparsely populated upland rural areas, where there are more empty houses and older people needing services. Research about climate migration focused mainly on where people will move from, not enough about where it would make most sense for them to move to.
A massive investment in adult education would probably help a lot in making up for the Economic problems of importing tons of people without the level of formal education necessary for the higher value added jobs most europeans can do (50% of the population being Uber and food delivery drivers doesn't quite work economically), but the very same people who brought us a massive house price bubble to reward rent-seekers to the max (in turn feeding a fall in birth rates because young people can't afford a family), a race to the bottom on taxing wealth and 4 decades of falling real terms funding for any public services other than the ones mainly used by old people, are hardly going to invest in adult education.
It's a problem that can solve itself with time, no need for population replacement because muh economy.
It's not passing such a milestone that's an issue, so much as how fast we pass it - i.e. a population decline is sustainable if gradual. My concern is that our models of economics and governance derive from previous centuries when population was rapidly growing, which helped provide social mobility and influence for younger generations. So we need to adjust economics and governance to compensate, to avoid stagnation and gerontocracy.
and how do we do that
Well some small steps could include - taxes shifting from income to wealth, land and luxury use of resources, lowering barriers to voting for younger people (e.g. the requirement for stable residence disenfranchises people who move about), return to free education, a lower voting age and upper age-limit for politicians... Yet gerontocracy is a problem even in youth-skewed continents like Africa. So to be honest I don't know, maybe some people here on Lemmy have more revolutionary ideas...?
Well, realistically this is a situation we can fuck our way out of
Geez, feels like just this year that over 64 year olds outnumbered under 14 year olds.
My immediate response is that this is clearly good news - a gradual reduction in population is a good thing. We just need to work on managing the societal practicalities properly
Reductions in population will happen after the climate change issues go unresolved when they needed to be, and resource scarcity forces an economic global crisis never seen in modern history. It won’t be gradual. Every pop model predicts going from 10B to 1B in less than 100 years post vertex. Or at least it seems if we stay on the track we are on.
We're so utterly fucked...
Covid 2 electric boogaloo?
Just a reminder that unsustainable world population growth is bad. Fewer people is good for everyone and our planet.
And this is why the retirement ages have to be raised in many countries.
People live longer and fewer young to take care of the old (and the economy in general)
Yea and by the time I get to retirement age it will be pushed so far back that only a handful of people will live long enough to retire anyway. Just work until you die /s
I doubt that will happen.
But raising the retirement age is needed in an ageing population where people just live healthier and longer than ever.
Otherwise an ever increasing amount of people will be retired and the amount of people that can contribute to the economy and well everything really will decrease.
The same problem would arise if the amount of children suddenly started increasing rapidly, fortunately that would likely solve it self after a while since they would eventually work too. We need a balance of workers and non workers otherwise society would collapse.
The only way I can see that being sustainable is if we could automate to the degree that the amount of human workers could be less every year. But that's not possible yet (if ever).
And no I obviously don't want the retirement age to increase, I hope to also retire some day. But I see no choice.
Europe has proven we can't fix this by importing millions of unskilled people with radically different values. The social unrest is proving catastrophic. Rightwing parties are gaining traction in almost every European country. The EU is on track to accept more than a million applications this year alone, and most of them have large families which will be granted reunification. Data shows most of them will never work a day in their lives. Our social systems will collapse within a decade at this rate. We'll be lucky if the EU itself survives this.
Instead, we really need to alleviate the issues resulting in young people not having kids. The usual argument is, "it's too expensive." While true, data shows that income isn't a barrier to fertility. In fact, higher income results in lower fertility, with some exceptions at the very top end of the income spectrum.
As a German, I call bullshit. Every asylum seeker I've met either had a job/went to school or was denied a job because the application didn't go through yet. I'm sure there are people out there who don't want to work, but please show me the data which shows that "most of them will never work a day in their lives". Your comment sounds EXACTLY like the rhetorics of the same right-wing you pretend to condemn.
Euractiv link to the same stat
Source from a website self-labelled as "A platform for Syrians to own their discourse
The figures show improvement over time, of course, as German language skills are picked up and general integration occurs, but as that last source puts it: "...the integration process remains fragile, and in its early stages. Much work remains ahead for both Syrian refugees and the German authorities."
As a German, I call bullshit.
As a Dane, I call bullshit. Show me the stats. Here are ours. Syrian migrants have an employment rate of under 20%. Somali immigrants are under 30%. As you can tell by the same link, their crime rate is astronomical.
As someone from a country where the AfD gains increasing popularity on an almost daily basis, calling "bullshit" rings completely hollow. You clearly have no idea how bad things have become for your average countryman.
I'm in the UK and the handful of asylum seekers I've met who are unemployed, have significant trauma and or disability and shouldn't be working as they are barely coping as it is.
If we can support citizens with these conditions on unemployment, it's nothing but racism to deny this support to people here under asylum.And unless some kind of supernatural magic occurs that stops capitalism, climate collapse, resource depletion, and all the genocidal authoritarianist politics humans seem to be so naturally predisposed to, birthrates should continue to fall. Adding to our numbers is nothing short of insanity at this point.