20 July 2006

Dude, Where's My Pension?

Will there even be such a thing as a state pension when we (by that I mean 20-somethings) retire? Surely if people are worried about all the baby boomer's retiring now, it's only going to get worse in the future, as the birth rates in western countries are dropping like a stone (see here for the only reason that Germans seem to have kids, for example).

Who's going to be paying into the system when I retire, and who's going to be doing all the work? I still don't think machines and robots will have solved all our problems by then. Plus, loads of those 'baby boomers' will still be living, as the average lifespan increases, and they'll be increasingly expensive to look after (alternatively, they could choose a bit of euthanasia to ease the burden). We're going to need loads of immigrants to solve these problems. But the issue of immigration already raised problems of its own, if they're not properly integrated into their new country.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

SOK
Immigration is not the answer, its a short term solution which helps but does not solve the basic problem.

Thing is, after 1 generation immigrants tend to adopt the traits of their host nation (lower birth rates, longer lifespan, marriage later in life etc etc).

Only by encouraging greater immigration and integration, as well as increased protection of the rights of women who want to have kids will we be in that happy situation when we retire of having enough people to care of us.