Intergenerational Report

Turning Japanese, Then Embracing A Grim Future

It's here. We're headed for a ZRIP future for sure now. The Intergenerational report being waved around by Joe Jockey in his ever diminishing quest to lump all the problems on to the poor essentially outlines a future of diminishing population growth as well as economic growth.

It predicts marginally slower economic growth to 2054-55 (2.8 per cent) than has been the case in the past four decades (3.1 per cent) coupled with a massive spike in the number of people living past 100, and a doubling of the number of people in the over 65 category. 

While the government has not committed to a further hike in the age pension eligibility age – often erroneously called the retirement age – the report's projections of a shrinking workforce, as a proportion of the wider population it supports, means there will continue to be pressure to lift the age from 67 set by Labor, to 70 and perhaps beyond, if it can get it through the Senate.

"The number of centenarians is an extraordinary story," Mr Hockey said in releasing the report. 

"There are only 100 in 1971, there's going to be 40,000 in 2050. 

"There will be fewer people aged between 15 and 64 relative to each person aged over 65.

"Sixty-five is the traditional working age, obviously that is changing, but in 1970 there were the equivalent of 7.5 people for everyone aged over 65. It's currently 4.5 and it's dropping to nearly three." 

He said older workers had remained in the workforce even through the GFC because their income from investments had been hit, helping to achieve high levels of older workers still. 

"This is the grey army that is going to deliver prosperity in Australia's future and we need older Australians, we want older Australians if they choose to do so to remain in the workforce and to come back into the work force," he said.

That last paragraph sounds painfully like the catch cry in Japan where older workers are expected to stoically stay in their jobs. The intergenerational report is painting a picture where the population is ageing, and economic growth diminishing over time, and the future prosperity being dependent on the participation of women and the elderly - and probably mostly just elderly women.

Seeing that this is the Gen-X blog after all I may as well point it out: the newsflash here is that the Intergenerational Reports highlighting the rather grim outlook that Gen-X won't able to retire.
That being the case, the only hope is that there are significant rejuvenation remedies in the future so that working into old age ceases to be a problem. Indeed, if those technologies come online as predicted by Ray Kurzweil and his Singularity scenario, then old age won't matter. It would remain appropriate that we continue to work and only when we take ourselves off rejuvenation and prepare for senescence and embrace death would we be allowed a pension.

The trickier problem is that the delimiting economic growth is going to come from the lack of room in which to grow as well as the ageing population. We're not that far into the process but in the post-GFC New Normal, we're already butting up against the limitations of not only our economy, but that of China which is straggling if not falling off its perch. If China's growth has been our growth engine, we'll have to be dragged down by the fact that China's workers have peaked and are now rapidly growing old. The space for economic growth to take place on this planet isn't as big as it has been in history.

Dare I say, it is going to make space look a lot more likely as a colonial destination.