Model Essay 9: Ageing Populations

It is worth beginning by noting what an ageing population actually indicates. It is the result of better medicine, safer work, cleaner water and fewer children dying - which is to say that it is a symptom of success, even though it is almost always discussed as a crisis. It does, however, bring real difficulties alongside its benefits.

The advantages are easy to overlook. People who remain healthy into their seventies can continue to work, and they bring judgement and experience that cannot be acquired quickly; in professions such as medicine, teaching and law, the most valuable practitioners are rarely the youngest. Older people also perform an enormous amount of unpaid work that never appears in any economic measure. Grandparents providing regular childcare are, in effect, subsidising the employment of the generation below them, and communities rely heavily on retired volunteers for exactly the tasks that no one is paid to do.

The disadvantages are mainly arithmetical. If a smaller working population must support a larger retired one, then either taxes rise, retirement comes later, or pensions and services are reduced - and all three are politically difficult. Healthcare costs are also concentrated overwhelmingly in the last years of life, so a society with more people in that stage will spend a great deal more on medicine regardless of how efficient its system is.

What determines which side dominates is not longevity itself but health. Additional years spent working, helping and living independently are a straightforward gain; additional years spent frail and dependent are a straightforward cost.

The development therefore carries genuine advantages and genuine difficulties, and the balance between them depends far less on how long people live than on how well they live while doing so.