Think we can just raise taxes on the rich to save the welfare state? That's a negative, ghostrider, because the retiree patten is full and getting moreso. The welfare state is not sustainable.
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_1_birthrates.html - excerpts follow:
Kamikatsu shows in microcosm what Japan and several other nations now face—and what others soon will. For decades, demographers and economists have watched the world’s fertility rate plunge as countries grew wealthier and more urban. These days, fertility rates in much of the industrialized world are far below replacement levels—that is, the number of kids that parents must have to replace themselves and adults who remain childless. Though the steepest declines happened first in wealthy countries like Japan, Italy, Germany, and Spain, even many developing countries have seen their fertility rates head downward.
Demographers are scrambling to adjust their population projections, with little notice in the press. In the early 1990s, United Nations researchers projected that the world’s population would reach a maximum of 10 to 12 billion people (up from about 6.7 billion today). They subsequently scaled back that projection to 9.5 billion and then to about 9.1—adding, however, that it might be as low as 7.9. But the truth is that no one knows how this massive reversal will end. The UN demographers optimistically claim that the world’s fertility rate, currently at 2.6 children per woman, will decline to replacement level and then stabilize. But there’s no clear reason for that to happen; dozens of countries have seen their rates sink far lower. In his book Fewer, Ben Wattenberg estimates that if the rate were to stop at 1.85 births per woman, the world’s population could shrink to 2.3 billion by the year 2300.
Unfortunately, getting people to work longer won’t solve countries’ fertility-related economic difficulties, even if it will have a modest impact on pension spending. The Japanese, for instance, already boast a nearly 70 percent labor-force participation rate for those aged 55 to 64. But because of the country’s extreme birth dearth, by mid-century the average Japanese would need to work until age 83 to keep a constant ratio of workers to retirees. Europeans would need to work until their late seventies.
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_1_birthrates.html - excerpts follow:
Kamikatsu shows in microcosm what Japan and several other nations now face—and what others soon will. For decades, demographers and economists have watched the world’s fertility rate plunge as countries grew wealthier and more urban. These days, fertility rates in much of the industrialized world are far below replacement levels—that is, the number of kids that parents must have to replace themselves and adults who remain childless. Though the steepest declines happened first in wealthy countries like Japan, Italy, Germany, and Spain, even many developing countries have seen their fertility rates head downward.
Demographers are scrambling to adjust their population projections, with little notice in the press. In the early 1990s, United Nations researchers projected that the world’s population would reach a maximum of 10 to 12 billion people (up from about 6.7 billion today). They subsequently scaled back that projection to 9.5 billion and then to about 9.1—adding, however, that it might be as low as 7.9. But the truth is that no one knows how this massive reversal will end. The UN demographers optimistically claim that the world’s fertility rate, currently at 2.6 children per woman, will decline to replacement level and then stabilize. But there’s no clear reason for that to happen; dozens of countries have seen their rates sink far lower. In his book Fewer, Ben Wattenberg estimates that if the rate were to stop at 1.85 births per woman, the world’s population could shrink to 2.3 billion by the year 2300.
Unfortunately, getting people to work longer won’t solve countries’ fertility-related economic difficulties, even if it will have a modest impact on pension spending. The Japanese, for instance, already boast a nearly 70 percent labor-force participation rate for those aged 55 to 64. But because of the country’s extreme birth dearth, by mid-century the average Japanese would need to work until age 83 to keep a constant ratio of workers to retirees. Europeans would need to work until their late seventies.
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