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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
