r/Futurology • u/tadano-yn-desu • 3d ago
Discussion My thoughts on older people in 2050s
Below are some of my predictions about the global old population and their impacts in 2050s. These predictions may not be accurate, true or complete, and are based on certain assumptions.
Assumptions I use for my prediction are as follows, you may or may not agree with these assumptions:
- Aging remains not solved or is proven to be unsolvable for humans by 2050. Anti-aging in the sense of curing or significantly delaying aging simply is not a sure thing yet.
- No apocalypse or world war in the next 25 years. Major disasters can massively change the demographic profile of the world by killing a lot of people and the subsequent raise of birth rate.
- Current trend of birth rate around the world. There is no reason to anticipate that the current global trend of the drop of birth rate will change, and so far no policies can raise birth rates in a long run.
Below are my predictions based on these assumptions:
First, old people will make up a greater proportion of the population everywhere, and may become the majority of the voting population in some developed countries like Japan and South Korea, two countries where their pop cultures are currently having a global-level influence. So instead of thinking anime-like high school kids for Japan and young adult idols for Korea, we should rethink both Japan and Korea as countries full of old people in 2050 to fit the facts of them better.
The increment of the proportion of older people in the population will impact the landscape of politics, especially in democratic countries, the opinions of the old people in general may become more and more important in deciding policies of many countries, we can even anticipate that the political decisions will become more conservative because of what old people think. And since the old people by 2050 are mainly those of Gen X and Millennials that have a greater adaptability of technology compared to previous generations, and will be numerous and even be the majority in some countries, people of future generations will probably be more sour to millennials than millennials are to previous generations.
Second, the growing number of old people means the pension system will go bankruptcy and the shrinkage of economy in most developed countries(with the possible exception of Israel) and may middle-income countries, because people will just die out and there are less people from new generations to keep the consumption level; and the growing percentage of old people means the government need to pay more to its people, which will lead to a bankruptcy of the pension system. Immigration will become less effective over time in upkeeping the economy because population aging is a global phenomenon, and is not only happening in developed countries, which means the potential source of immigrants will shrink and countries open for immigration will compete for new immigrants; AI/robots may help offset the shrinkage of productivity but not the economy, because we may not want AI/robots to have their own wishes and desires to make sure they will just serve for us, thus AI/robots won't go shopping, which means they won't support the economy on the demand side.
Third, following second, a low growth rate in GDP per capita and a drop of total GDP may become the norm of many societies. This is because an aging population means the population will start to shrink some day, and eventually there will be less people buying new things, subsequently making companies in a country compete against each other more fiercely and making companies more likely to go bankruptcy due to a more fierce competition to get attention from fewer buyers, which in turn will make people facing a stronger risk of losing their jobs, thus changing their habits in consumption, and an environment with a more fierce competition would also make families, especially families of middle classes, less likely to give birth to children because parents, especially parents of the middle classes, worry that their children will lose in social competition, becoming someone of a lower class; moreover, it has been shown that older people are less likely to start a new business even if older people are more likely to succeed in starting a new business, which could further reduce the growth rate of GDP per capita since entrepreneurship is closely related to innovation, which in turn is a key to GDP growth in more developed countries.
Fourth, the growing number of old people will make some less prepared old people have a hard time in their old age, some old people may find out that they can't afford retirement and are stuck in jobs, sometimes low-paying jobs due to the bankruptcy of the pension system and possibly the lack of offspring that could take care of them, and the scarcity of senior positions for all old people in corporations and other organizations, and some old people, especially unemployed ones without enough amount of pensions, may even choose to survive by committing crimes. This is not exaggeration, it is actually what is happening in Japan right now due to population aging, and Japanese people have invented a word describing this phenomenon: 下流老人(karyu rojin, literally "elders of lower classes"). This will also make younger people face an even more fierce competition as well since the lack senior positions for all older people will force some older people to remain in less senior positions, making younger people to compete with older people as well as younger people more often for the same and less senior positions.
Fifth, people of the Gen X and Millennials will make up the old people in 2050s. While people of the Gen X and Millennials have a higher education on average(higher level of education is a protective factor against dementia), and information about healthy aging will be highly available since population aging has already become an issue right now, both of the rising obesity rate globally and the recent invention of effective obesity drug like Ozempic make it harder to predict the health status of old people in 2050s.
Sixth, due to population aging, massive renovations of the infrastructure may take place in many cities in developed and middle income countries to make the cities more elder-friendly; also the rising number of old people may also lead to changes of elder care, potentially making every house to be redesigned under the standards we have for elder homes right now, and the rising number of old people itself may also make elder home largely obsolete.
Actually, what is happening in Japan due to population aging can be what will happen in other developed and middle income countries in 2050s since Japan takes the lead in population aging among all countries in the world as of now. A lot of things, like third and fourth, are what is happening in Japan right now, it is not that hard to anticipate such a future, only that we might not be able to deal with it well even if we know what will happen. To see what 2050s might be like in other developed countries, take a look at what the real Japan right now is like and you will get some ideas.
5
u/astrobuck9 3d ago
So, AGI/ASI is not achieved on this timeline?
That is a pretty minority opinion.