Readers' comments



The issue at issue is not the one people believe it is. Consider: what is necessary to create and sustain a human being? Modest quantities of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon and a few other quite common elements, and energy. Energy is easy to come by. The sun blasts into space in one second the same amount that falls on the earth over 22 years. The constraints are all technological, and will most likely be sorted out in time, assuming politics does not get too much worse than it is now.The real issue is one of lifestyle. People who fret about overpopulation are really worried that in the future life will be radically different than it is today. This will happen anyway, so be of good cheer.The same might be said about retirement. As the global labor shortage begins to bite in upcoming decades, the institutional barriers to senior employment will have to be dealt with, and will be, again assuming that politics does not get any worse than now. So, again, be of good cheer unless you are seeking employment now; then you're screwed.


Interesting to learn about this problem of a shrinking population in the same issue that highlights the catastrophic damage that 6.7 billion people are causing to the oceans.I'm more curious to know where all these people came from in the first place. There are about the same amount of people living in the MUNICIPALITY of Shanghai as in the CONTINENT of Australia. 127 million people on a cluster of barren rocks in the middle of the ocean? I'm sure future Japanese citizens will appreciate the extra space. And don't worry about taking care of dependents--Toyota already has a good head start developing robots to handle all of that.


As for "Age discrimination," I would like to think as Age Limitation. When you are old you are just not suitable for certain jobs. Why not let the young ones to have their chances? After all they will get old one day and face the same problem too.


No more retirement for those who can't afford it. Old people will just have to keep on working till they die. You'll have to go to work with your walkers. Professions for old people who can't afford retirement are all old fashioned: baby sitters, care givers, companions, watchers, public park cleaners, ..... anything people can do can be the retireless professions. Anything the young people don't wanna do the old people can do to support themselves.

Impenitent Pedant

The Seeker is too sanguine. We, the aged, are not beset by doom and gloom but we are beset by age discrimination from younger persons. Since almost exactly the age of 60 I have been declined for positions for which I am VERY qualified on grounds such as:• your experience is out of date (never true);• your experience is very up-to-date but this project uses old-style technology;• your project management experience is for very large projects and this is a small-scale project;• your project management experience is for small projects and this is a VERY large project:• this job is for a business analyst and you are a project manager;• how can you manage programmers when you haven't written a program for 15 years;• your experience is in Investment Management and we are in Investment Banking;• et cetera.At least one agency providing services to the City of London had the honesty to tell me the City will not employ anyone over 50 in a back office position and over 40 in the so-called "front office".The UK's age discrimination legislation does not help at the upper end of the age spectrum as it permits any employer to take into account whether a new hire would be acceptable to their pension arrangements. And I would much rather told "you're and old fart and we will never employ someone of your age"; at least I would feel I have the right to punch such a disrespectful puppy on the nose.So I am involuntarily retired living on a much diminished pension and still speculatively designing and developing databases for a different industry. My life remains interesting and challenging and, if I become a successful salesman in the new industry, potentially financially rewarding. Moreover, when a friend called recently to invite me to a day out at the British Museum I was free to go.However, if anyone (particularly any member of our NuLabour government) has the temerity to suggest I and all others over 65 should get a job I might roast that minister alive over a slow fire and enjoy eating the crackling.


"Over-population" is hardly a problem, as recent studies have shown, and indeed many economically developed countries are experiencing "under-population." The solution to this problem, of course, is for those of us in economically developed countries to have more offspring, and for those of us in the workforce and positions of influence to strive for more productive places of work. Women, historically more apt than their male counterparts at bearing and rearing offspring, also score consistently low marks on productivity charts. It seems all the more fitting that their primary societal role be that of a maternal one, and one which will be all the more productive with each marginal increase in offspring.


Malthusians are correct it's just their timing that's slightly off, especially for the up-and-coming pollution-caused famines and deaths. Causes which were virtually unknown and were certainly not even in consideration during Malthus' eighteenth/nineteenth century lifetime.As for the "Greying" aspect of your newspaper's article: the proverbial handwriting is on the wall, or the computer screen, and you're correct to note the outright cowardice of politicians as they muddle-through the labyrinthine steps necessary to solve the planet's severe environmental problems, problems further exacerbated by these many societies imminent aging population dilemmas. Too bad for all of us still here?arrtist.


In response to the last question asked by the article on whether politicians worldwide will be willing to do principled and unpopular things, no there is no chance at all of that. Rest assured the basis of politics in every system still seems to be "please people now, pay it off later".


Back in the 60's, LBJ and David Rockefeller came up with a prototype anti-aging project called the International Executive Service Corps, a sort of Conseillers Sans Fronti�res that recruited volunteer, generally retired businessmen to share their know-how in and with emerging economies. While it paralleled lightly the Peace Corps (hence its Paunch Corps sobriquet), it accomplished two very useful objectives. First, it helped leap-frog the host's managerial gap. Second and equally importantly, it extended the productive lives of its roster of American volunteers, which ranged from a Connecticut locksmith to the retired chairman of American Airlines.

While the program continues in modified form and would need to be re-jigged to economies even lower on the evolutionary scale, its potential as a cost-effective way to keep oldsters useful and recycle and rejuvenate their wealth of experience stands in a class by itself. The volunteers were also very effective shirt-sleeve ambassadors, as many clients pointed out.


It's the total dependency ratio that matters, not just retirees. Does anyone expect that the ratio of all non-working to working people in the US will get anywhere near what it was in 1960, at the height of the baby boom, when most women were at home tending those hordes of kids ?

The Seeker

The answer is to keep healthy and productive. Forty and fifty-year-olds in rich countries often think like thirty-somethings in our parents' generation. Many people are also gentler and wiser at that age. As long as there is work which is rewarding rather than soul-destroying, there is no reason for people not to work past 65. Having a productive life and feeling necessary and wanted by society, rather than being portrayed as a burden, gives meaning to existence. It is about time to stop being ageist and to stop the doom and gloom about the greying population, and to start coming up with creative employment solutions that makes use of the wisdom and experience of the elderly.


One of the reasons for the demographic time bomb is the fact that people live longer. While it will mean rethinking prejudice against the elderly in the workplace, why not go ahead and decide when people probably are unable to work and then delay retirement payments until then.

Look at Greenspan for example, look at US congressmen.

It may be also that rather than have people provide public service in the earliest years of their working lives it should be assumed that the elderly would go back down the wage scale and provide services at the end of life.

I personally at 75 am thinking about seeing if I can earn a senior citizen service certificate at a local university where as an over 62er tuition is free, looking to a second career for the next 10 years with my peers.


It's impressive to see the reviewer, and perhaps the author of the book, are not calling for us to get busy making more babies to solve this problem. That would, of course, be like turning Bernie Madoff loose to keep on adding new investors in an effort to keep his Ponzi scheme going.

This is an adjustment we need to make, and it will be much less painful than adjusting to the impacts of overpopulation. Of course we ARE experiencing the impacts of overshoot, but we can take some comfort and inspiration from the slowing of population growth. We would be well-advised to strive for a stable or declining population level as quickly as possible.

Dave Gardner
Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity
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