Date published: 2005/03/12
The BBC says:
Employment ministers from the G8 countries are meeting in London to discuss the challenges posed by their ageing populations.
The UK is currently chairing the group, comprising seven of the world's leading industrialised nations, and Russia.
All G8 nations have working populations that are declining as a percentage of their overall populations.
The ministers will be looking at how to raise employment rates, particularly among older workers.
"All countries need to face up to the consequences of an ageing society," said UK pensions minister Alan Johnson.
"A declining working age population means we need to redouble our efforts to get as many people in employment as possible so they are able to save and plan for their retirement."
Many developing nations, however, are facing a different kind of demographic change and the problem of youth unemployment there will also be on the agenda.
Migration between countries of the world is one way to help mitigate this problem. Of course many people are xenophobes so migration is not generally considered to be a politically acceptable option. Migration could work in two directions. The old-population countries could send old people to young-population countries to be looked after in retirement. (For example British retirees could move to India. At least the weather is better. And the cost of looking after them is lower.) And young-population countries could send young people to old-population countries to fill out the workforce. (This is the more traditional direction of migration. But for obvious reasons it usually sucks out talented people from the originating country, rather than a random sample.)
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