«Working longer is far more
effective than immigration»

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Jennifer Sciubba, do we have too many or too few people on the planet?

I don’t think that question is answerable at a planetary level. You have to look at the local context. Two countries can have really similar demographic profiles yet very different economic, social or political outcomes. I don’t think the globe itself is overpopulated, especially since we have already turned the tide of population growth overall.

 

Why are birth rates in industrialized countries so low today?

There are a number of reasons. There are different levels of low, and that matters as well. For example, a handful of countries have fertility rates above 1,5 children per woman but still below the replacement level of 2,1. There’s also an increasing number of countries with what we call «super low» fertility, like South Korea or Singepore. The dynamics are a bit different in these contexts. Overall, there are economic and cultural reasons. The economic reasons are the easy ones to identify: It is expensive to have, raise, and educate children. Housing is costly. The supply is inadequate. Childcare is costly. Youth unemployment rates are high in many countries, making it difficult for them to find desired jobs. Additionally, in the U.S., there is a significant student debt problem. It’s easy to continue listing expenses.

 

What about cultural factors?

There’s a shift in attitudes. Younger people today do not see childbearing as valuable as people did in the past. They struggle to understand how their lives would be better with children. This undercurrent affects how they view expenses. This is where policymakers get frustrated; they say: «Well, you said it was expensive, so we’re going to try to give you some money towards it.» But this often fails to raise fertility rates because it’s never just about that one thing. If we consider the super low fertility contexts, particularly in Asia, population and politics are really gender politics. In this region, patriarchal norms are embedded in laws and practices that lead people to opt out of marriage, which is a crucial step before childbearing. I’m often asked by people in Asia: «If it’s really about gender, then why isn’t Finland’s fertility rate higher?» Well, it’s still half a child higher than South Korea’s, which is significant. This points to the complexity that it’s never just one or two things; it’s a list of complex factors.

«Younger people today do not see childbearing as valuable as people did in the past. They struggle to understand how their lives would be better with children.»

 

When I look at my generation and younger generations, I get the impression that we have so many opportunities today and so much fear of missing out that we miss out on having children.

That’s part of it. We should bring technology into this discussion as well. We need more research on this, but anecdotally and logically, the picture is clear. A lot of people are portraying the negatives on social media rather than the positives. If you have a two-year-old and you go on Facebook to talk about your morning, it’s probably not going to be: «This was the sweetest morning in the world.» But it doesn’t mean you didn’t want it. It’s still worth it, but that’s not what comes across.

 

Why can low fertility be a problem?

Our economic systems are set up to assume and value an infinite supply of younger workers coming in and outnumbering older people. So at the very basic level, it is a problem because the circumstances have changed, but our systems have not. Those societies that can be the first and best to adjust their systems will fare the best in terms of these demographic shifts. This is why I think it’s a shame that 90 percent of the conversations that I’m in are only about how to change the backdrop. They’re not about accepting the fact that the change has happened and we need to adjust to it. Our marker of economic success is a growing economy – even if the population is rapidly shrinking. In European-style social welfare states and in the United States, we’ve set up systems in which younger workers financially support older workers. When those numbers change, it’s a problem.

 

In March, Switzerland voted to increase pensions and, at the same time, rejected increasing the pension age. Do you think that was a good move given our demographic situation?

No, I do not. When I first came to study demography 20 years ago, as a political scientist, I wanted to know if the size of demographic groups translated to political power. I was wondering if we would end up with something like a gerontocracy, where all of the policies would favor older people. Because many high-income countries are democracies and are aging, it is just really hard politically to get through the types of adjustments needed in order to have a resilient system. Democracies are very bad at long-term planning because politicians are beholden to electoral cycles. Demographic shifts require the ultimate long-term planning.

 

To be fair, China’s long-term planning wasn’t that great either…

Well, they knew what was coming, though. When the Chinese government introduced its one-child policy 40 years ago, they basically said: If this works, we’re going to have an aging population. It wasn’t that they failed to plan for this. Their failure was thinking they could turn the demographic trend around. They thought they had control like a puppet master and could turn that dial however they wanted.

 

In the end, it depends on the institutions and how we adapt them to demographic changes? So, the problem would basically disappear if we just worked longer.

Maybe not disappear, but dissipate. We also fail to realize that there are issues with rapidly growing populations as well – we tend to romanticize the past as if it was really smooth. But of course, in the handful of countries in the world that still have really high fertility rates, things are not smooth at all. I do think people have to work longer. There’s just no way around it. And it’s far more effective than even immigration is. There are so many more older people available to work. In a large population, the impact of people working 1 to 5 years longer is in the millions.

«I do think people have to work longer. There’s just no way around it. And it’s far more effective than even immigration is.»

 

Immigration is sometimes depicted as the solution to our demographic problems. However, while it can maybe be part of the solution, it’s certainly not a sustainable one in the long term.

No, it also brings issues. I don’t think that’s a statement for or against immigration at all. It just means that everything has trade-offs. Each society has to negotiate what trade-offs it’s willing to accept. I always reject the argument that Japan will have to open its borders to immigration in order to compensate for aging. They can decide not to do that – they just have to live with the consequences.

 

Yasser Arafat once said that «the womb of the Palestinian woman is our strongest weapon against Zionism.» Is there something to that? Can fertility be a factor in conflicts?

What we know about the relationship between fertility and conflict is that societies with higher fertility rates which have faster growing populations are more at risk for domestic instability. For example, they’re far more likely to have coups.

 

So, as the world ages, can we expect that the prospects for stability increase?

Throughout human history, different populations within territories have always been in conflict. That is just how it has always been. We’ve tried to create political systems that allow for that conflict to happen peacefully. We’ll continue to see groups of different backgrounds conflict over core areas. Our hope is that this continues to happen within the democratic system. In non-democratic settings where there’s no way for that peaceful conflict to take place, I expect there to continue to be armed conflict or violence. Just because a country grows older does not mean it becomes more democratic. Of the group of aged countries – countries with a median age of 35 or higher –, a quarter are non-democracies. When I’m looking 25 years into the future, I’m seeing those non-democracies continuing to have conflicts expressed in violent ways.

 

Is there such a thing as an ideal age structure of a society?

It depends on what you want to achieve. If you don’t want to change your systems at all, then the ideal age structure is one that fits the system you have. For example, for our Pay-As-You-Go retirement systems, the ideal age structure is a younger one where people keep entering the workforce in greater numbers than they’re exiting it. If you want to consider an ecological view, then the ideal age structure might be an older one with less consumption.

 

If you had a veil of ignorance and you only knew the age structure of a country, which country would you choose to live in?

That’s a difficult question. I know that an older age structure probably means a society with higher well-being, which is what I would prefer. I would also like to live a really long time, so it makes sense to live in a society that has successfully brought people to older ages in large numbers.

 

How old do you want to become?

Well, I have very bad genes, so at this point, I’d be thrilled to make it to 70. But ideally, I’d like to look into my 90s if I can be healthy.