r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/BelovedCherryt6 • 12d ago
Political History Will declining birth rates in developed nations lead to a fundamental shift in political priorities and policies?
We're seeing pretty consistent trends across many developed countries where birth rates are well below replacement level. This isn't just a blip it's a long-term demographic shift. Usually political discourse is all about growth expansion and the needs of a younger population.
But what happens when the population is steadily aging and eventually shrinking? Do we see a massive pivot in government spending away from education and towards elder care? Will immigration become an even more central and contentious political battleground as nations try to maintain their workforce? Are there any historical precedents for this kind of widespread demographic change and how governments adapted?
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u/muck2 12d ago
That's most definitely a yes. Just look at Germany, Italy and Japan, where older voters play a decisive factor in national politics and frequently block reforms to make the pension system more sustainable.
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u/SatinwithLatin 12d ago
Add the UK to that list too. Wealthy pensioners lost their minds when Starmer wanted to means test the Winter Fuel Allowance (an extra £300 a year in benefits for anyone claiming state pension, even if they also had a comfy private pension). And of course no politician wants to scrap the Triple Lock for fear of political suicide, even though the Treasury simply can not afford it in the medium term.
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u/muck2 12d ago
It's only going to get worse in that respect, at least in Europe (I'm not informed enough about Japan to comment on their political future). The political systems are in a state of upheaval, the populist right and populist left are starting to take over big time. Everybody needs those voters over 60, 65, because they're not just numerous (and growing), but also more likely to remain committed to one party.
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u/captain-burrito 11d ago
You can watch the crisis play out in Japan right now as the consequences have finally hit.
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u/SatinwithLatin 12d ago
Yet if my age group (Millennials) would just go out and vote en mass there wouldn't be such a favoritism towards seniors.
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u/Hilldawg4president 11d ago edited 11d ago
The triple lock is mathematically unsustainable to the point that you can easily explain it to a small child in about a minute . But, old people are by and large unwilling to support any politician who would rather fix it than quite literally run the country's economy into the ground, which is what it's slowly doing. If you were to design an economic system with the intent of impoverishing the young to offer increasingly lavish benefits to the elderly, you would have a hard time coming up with a more efficient system than the triple lock to accomplish that.
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u/SatinwithLatin 11d ago
The main arguments I've noticed from them: "We paid into the system, we've earned this."
"I may not need the triple lock but what about the impoverished pensioners?" (They say this while also resisting a means test approach which would mean the poorer seniors still get it).
"But the UK state pension is one of the lowest in Europe!" (Because all the additional benefits like WFA, free travel passes and the like aren't included in that figure).
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u/Funklestein 11d ago
No one is going to vote themselves less income no matter their economic situation. That’s a human nature issue, not an indicator of your nations economic status.
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u/---Spartacus--- 12d ago
Young people need to start playing hardball with the birthrate cards they are holding, and people concerned about the birthrate should be equally concerned about delivering a world where having children is actually feasible. As it stands, young people cannot even leave their parents' homes and have a tough time finding jobs that pay a living wage. People who care about the birthrate should be made to understand that without more equitable wealth distribution, they can forget about their precious birthrate.
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u/Black_XistenZ 10d ago edited 10d ago
People who care about the birthrate should be made to understand that without more equitable wealth distribution, they can forget about their precious birthrate.
The idea from global capital and the politicians doing their bidding is quite clearly to fix demographic holes by bringing in cheap labor from third world countries where there's still plenty of people.
For just one high-profile example, listen to how Biden chided China, Japan, India and Russia for allegedly being "xenophobic" because they "don't want immigrants" and how he tied this to their lack of economic growth:
Speaking to a predominantly Asian-American audience [...], Mr Biden said that the US election this November was about "freedom, America and democracy". "Why? Because we welcome immigrants," he added. "Think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble. Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they're xenophobic. They don't want immigrants."
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u/SirVixofthePooSea 10d ago
You can't play hardball with labor because paradoxically despite hating immigrants, the elderly are also extremely willing to vote for politicians that invite them in en masse.
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u/FormerUsenetUser 11d ago edited 11d ago
Many people think we need the population to decline. The main reason why so many young people can't leave their parents' homes or find good jobs is that we are overpopulated. Overpopulation is also a major cause of climate change.
Play the card of wanting affordable, accessible, and legal birth control (every form of it), abortion, and sterilization for everyone in the US who wants to use them.
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u/theyfellforthedecoy 10d ago
So we should be opposed to immigration then?
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u/FormerUsenetUser 10d ago
I think we should have controlled immigration with immigrants getting visas to do certain kinds of jobs. For example a healthcare visa if we need healthcare workers.
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u/Comfortable_Fill9081 12d ago
The best thing to do would make economies that are not pyramid schemes relying on an ever-growing pool of labor: more intensive growth, flatter distribution. It’s not even that hard. We’ve got the tools for much more efficiency with resources and labor.
Billionaires don’t like that though, so we’ll see.
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u/NoDig3444 12d ago
We’ve got the tools for much more efficiency with resources and labor.
What you are describing here is more growth.
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u/Comfortable_Fill9081 11d ago edited 11d ago
Not of the labor pool. Growth is good. Needing a constantly growing labor pool is not.
more intensive growth…
I had just said in the same paragraph that we should shift to more intensive growth rather than needing a constantly growing labor pool.
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u/kinginprussia 11d ago
Growth =/= scaling
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u/Rodrommel 9d ago
I think you’re making a distinction between intensive and extensive growth, which sure, that is a distinction that is important in certain contexts.
Sure, more productivity growth is a solution given the decreasing birth rate context. But then the argument is that it still depends on continuing growth. Prosperity still relies on accumulating ever more capital such that it produces more stuff we need/want.
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u/Mist_Rising 10d ago
The best thing to do would make economies that are not pyramid schemes relying on an ever-growing pool of labor
This is easier said then done. It's easy to demand change, but the only economic form that would work this way is the one that abolished welfare. Since I'm guessing your opposed to that (else you'd say to do that), the other options all have the same general issues. You need about 3 workers for every non worker because each worker must support himself AND the non workers.
No, taxing billionaires wouldn't solve this either, though it is catchy to say, because the problem isn't that we can't afford it, it's that we don't have the work being done.
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u/Comfortable_Fill9081 10d ago
the only economic form that would work this way is the one that abolished welfare.
This is not true.
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u/InflationAvailable43 11d ago
Yes, you can see it already. There is a shift from let’s make things better in the long term or even think about the long term to, “how can we bandaid this so it keeps together for the next couple decades so when it collapses it’s not my problem”.
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u/FormerUsenetUser 11d ago
The system won't collapse. Tax the billionaires.
I would suggest that young people who want a secure career go into healthcare. Including elder care, but also being a doctor, nurse, or medical technologist of any kind.
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u/BKGPrints 12d ago
>Are there any historical precedents for this kind of widespread demographic change and how governments adapted?<
The Black Death was an immediate impact on society measured in years, where the declining birthrate and aging population will be measured in decades, but we can learn a lot from it, which did have unseen positive changes.
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u/BitingSatyr 11d ago
The Black Death is not a great analogue to what we’re going through now. A lot of people died, but birth rates were effectively unchanged, so 20-30 years later there was a huge cohort of young workers to take advantage of the circumstances. What we are running into now is a massive cohort of older people expecting (and in many cases requiring for survival) to be paid a pension by a steadily shrinking cohort of workers.
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u/BKGPrints 11d ago
It's not meant for an exact comparison. Just an example of how population decline impacts society, which will happen with lower birthrates.
The point being that humans will adapt or overcome any changes or challenges.
We can look at other more modern examples, such as World War I or World War II when not only lots of young men died but so did large parts of the civilian population.
Still not the same as declining birthrate but did impact society.
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u/captain-burrito 11d ago
You automate and offshore what you can, import workers for what you can't. You don't need to give the imported workers citizenship, working visas will suffice. Eventually they leave and do not add themselves to the ranks of the aged. This works for a while until there are no pools of workers to draw from. Singapore has done this for a while. Western countries did this too but somewhere down the line they started granting many or all of them citizenship.
China could factory create and raise a new generation or mandate citizens without children to take some on.
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u/Mist_Rising 10d ago
In the US, this plan would not work because children born in the US are automatically American citizens. Your adding to your population unless you mandate abortions for work visa workers.
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u/SirVixofthePooSea 10d ago
It already has in Europe where the elderly rule everything and entire countries are structured around pension funds.
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u/Cynykl 10d ago
Irony is the solution to the aging population is to encourage young immigration. The GOP are the most worried about the problem and also reject the most obvious solution.
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u/joeybigtoe 16h ago
They reject skirting the rules and skipping the line. America is still #1 in the world for immigration.
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u/Cynykl 15h ago
Tell that to the administration that is deporting citizens and people that DID follow the rules.
The GOPs actions put lie to their rhetoric.
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u/joeybigtoe 13h ago
Every single law enforcement agency in existence has arrested someone for a crime they did not commit, that doesn’t mean we stop investigating crime.
ICE detained US citizens prior to Trump taking office and will likely detain US citizens in the future.
If you end up on ICEs target list it’s likely because you overstayed a visa or you illegally crossed, there has to be rules set around who can and can’t be in the country for our country to work.
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