Oldal 79 [79]
Demography and migration | 77
usually prioritise stability over risk-taking and the status quo over reforms.
In Danni Dorling’s and Stuart Gietel-Basten’s observation:
Today there are no shortage of demographic bombs presented as nascent threats,
with their fuses already burning: ageing time bombs, migration time bombs, delayed
fertility time bombs; you name it, there’s a bomb for it. The political potency of these
metaphors can be huge. (Dorling and Gietel-Basten 2018, 7)
Contemporary European political challenges rooted in demographic change
are multilayered, composed of policy, political, and external dimensions.
On the policy side, they bring into question the very sustainability of our
economic and welfare systems in their current shapes. Or, as Demeny states
more explicitly: “this drastically reduced population would have an age
distribution inconsistent with economic sustainability” (Demeny 2016, 111).
From a public health angle, while people live longer, which is a major
achievement to celebrate, these extra years are quite ‘expensive at a collective
level due to increased needs for medical support and personal care at an
advanced age - against the background of already troubled public health
systems in a number of European countries.
Another main challenge is to ensure appropriate income for the elderly
through prolonged work activities, own savings and assets, and pensions in
particular. When you raise this subject with university students, many of them
express deep pessimism about their future pension prospects. They are right,
pension system reforms will be a key challenge for their generation if they wish
to preserve hard-won achievements against the backdrop of a number of state
(usually pay-as-you-go) and private pension systems already stretched today.
Still, these are problems relatively ‘easy’ to solve as a matter of innovative
planning and vigorous implementation (through redefining what we
understand by being ‘old’ in contemporary societies, for instance) - while
solutions might prove to be difficult to put in place politically due to vocal
resistance by large groups of citizens (voters). Of course, ageing societies
also create economic opportunities, through the growing silver economy in
particular. Nevertheless, upholding our existing welfare systems, as we know
them today, may prove to be very difficult, if not impossible.
Even more difficult may be to influence low birth and fertility rates.
These are seen by many as not the cause but a symptom of deeper troubles
in European societies, mainly related to increasing fragility and risks in
individual life courses, concerning young adults in particular. Dorling and
Gietel-Basten consider this proven in surveys showing that the two-child
norm does remain the intended ideal family size among the European youth
today — it is just getting more and more difficult to achieve it (Dorling and
Gietel-Basten 2018, 113-119).
Demographers and other social scientists also claim that demographic
trends are not (only) economic, but essentially ideational in nature. Research