Population Ageing and Retirement Planning

 

 Population ageing is a shift in the distribution of a country's population towards older ages. This is usually reflected in an increase in the population's average age, a decline in the proportion of the population composed of children, and a rise in the proportion of the population that is elderly. Population ageing is widespread in developed countries.

 
The ratio of workers to pensioners (the "support ratio") is declining in much of the developed world. This is due to two factors: increased life expectancy coupled with a fixed retirement age, and a decrease in the fertility rate. Increased life expectancy (with fixed retirement age) increases the number of retirees at any time, since individuals are retired for a longer fraction of their lives, while decreases in the fertility rate decrease the number of workers.

These are examples of support ratio for selected countries in  1970, 2010 and projections for 2050.^[1]

Country	1970		2010		2050 (projected)
United States	5.3		4.5		2.6
Japan	8.5		2.6		1.2
Britain	4.3		3.6		2.4
Germany	4.1		3.0		1.6
France	4.2		3.5		1.9
Netherlands	5.3		4.0		2.1

Last year in Japan, the sale of adult nappies out sold baby nappies.

For us when we consider our retirement and pension planning we are all but too aware that there will not be any meaningful pensions available  in 30-40 yrs for us. Health services will not be affordable and with larger numbers of older adults, there will be an increased need for geriatric care and multi-generational living.

The state funded services that are available now will cease to exist as there are less and less tax payers to support the system and the retirement age will increase and increase until it may well be abolished!

This will move the value of family and community back to where it should be; ahead of everything else!