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Korea's Birthrate Hits Another Record Low
(www.stoppopulationdecline.org)
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this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2023
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Of course this is a good thing, but there are still serious negative consequences to a reducing population, which must be mitigated. Primarily, old people who are past working age are an expensive population to maintain. When there are as many or more old people as there are young, the burden is too heavy for young people to bear. And I say this as a 70 year old. Young people today CANNOT hit old age without their own substantial retirement resources.
A new robot factory is going live in Oregon that is manufacturing general purpose humanoid robots, so guess you could just buy a few to keep around the house.
But, maybe the idea that the young should support the old in their retirement is bad idea.
Why shouldn't it be someone's responsibility to finance their own retirement? Why should it be expected that the younger generation supports the old?
It has always seemed insane to me that I'm expected to fund the retirement of people 25+ years older, and I'm counting on people 25+ years younger to take care of me. Of course purely individual retirement planning only works for the rich and the lucky. But, you pay into a pot that helps with retirement costs, they should be the retirement costs of people roughly your age.
If a generation is funding its own retirement, then it doesn't matter if people are having fewer kids. In fact, if they have fewer kids they'll have more money left over to put into the pot for their own retirement.
As you know, the current system in America is that we pay into the retirement system. In the present time those funds are used to support present day seniors, and then when you have reached the proper age the people currently paying into it are supporting you but can (supposedly) expect to be supported the same way. I started paying into it at age 16, and now at 69 I am collecting. And additionally, I need to have saved up.
I don't know how we would transfer out of this system and into a completely self sufficient one. I DO know that this system mitigated the deep deep poverty many elderly used to experience. Because for the working and poor classes, no one realistically makes enough to set aside for retirement.
It's not necessarily financial trouble.
You need health care workers. Those workers do not contribute to other sectors of the economy, but still consume products. So a growing population of older people automatically reduces the effective number of working people.
I understand the current system, I just think it's not a good one. It seems to be designed on the idea that there will be an ever greater pool of young people who will support the people who are at retirement age. If that assumption is incorrect (and it currently seems to be incorrect) the current seniors don't have enough to retire.
It would make more sense if the system was designed similar to an individual retirement plan, except pooled for everybody of a certain age. So, you paid into the system throughout your life, then withdrew money when you retired. In a system like that it wouldn't matter if there was a population boom or a population crash when you were getting older, because the only thing that mattered for your retirement were the contributions you (and everyone else your age) made during your life.
Undoubtedly it would be hard to switch to that kind of a system, but it makes so much more sense than your retirement depending on the contributions of future generations.
You could make this argument about literally anything in a modern society.
"Why shouldn’t it be someone’s responsibility to finance their own education?"
"Why shouldn’t it be someone’s responsibility to finance their own healthcare?"
"Why shouldn’t it be someone’s responsibility to finance their own social care?"
"Why shouldn’t it be someone’s responsibility to finance their own fire department?"
I think it's just common decency to help look after your fellow people? Not everyone in retirement is going to require a lot of financial help, but there maybe others who do. Some may not have been so lucky in life to be a position to fund it themselves. What happens to these people if the funding isn't there? Do they literally starve to death on the the streets?
I'm not saying that we shouldn't look after each-other. I'm just saying the system shouldn't be designed so that the middle-aged people of today require that the birth rate be high enough or they won't be able to retire.