Over at the BBC, John Campbell does his best to depress us on this fine spring day:
New figures from the NI Statistics and Research Agency, external (Nisra) suggest there will be more pensioners than schoolchildren in Northern Ireland by 2030.
The Nisra figures show that between 2022 and 2030 the pensioner population will have grown from 315,000 to 356,000.
The number of children, aged 15 and under, will have fallen from 389,000 to 349,000.
The reduction is driven by long term trends of increased life expectancy and falling birth rates.
A rapidly aging society is likely to have significant implications for public services.
Already the health service is on its knees. How will it cope with more demand and fewer workers?
A few options:
- Encourage more people to have children with proper childcare and more flexible work
- Improve public health to help people stay healthier as they age
- Take steps to get the quarter of the population who are economically inactive back into the workforce
- Immigration to attract new workers, but then you have the knock-on issues of racism and housing shortages
Something tells me Stormont will go with the tried and tested method of doing absolutely bugger all.
It is also depressing that as a society we see old people as an economic burden whereas other cultures value their grandparents. The not so subtle message from our capitalist system is if you are not productive or contributing to the economy in any way you should just f*ck off and die already.