Canada's Aging Population

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

If there are parents out there who were motivated to become parents by an extra 6 months of EI or a monthly pittance/allowance, I'd prefer they were sterilized and not motivated to have more children.

This is the problem policy makers are facing.

Providing financial enticements (or more bluntly, reproduction bribes) will more than likely encourage the wrong kind of people to have more mealtickets, I mean, children.

Pretty much all the government can do is to ask people who can afford to have more children to do so. However, I would suspect the result of that would be negligible. People who want more kids will simply do so, people who don't, won't. Again, there's the danger of social engineering.

As it stands, increasing immigration would be a poor idea. As it is, the current immigration policy has some flaws as some posters have mentioned.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Thunderball

This is the problem policy makers are facing.

Providing financial enticements (or more bluntly, reproduction bribes) will more than likely encourage the wrong kind of people to have more mealtickets, I mean, children.

Pretty much all the government can do is to ask people who can afford to have more children to do so. However, I would suspect the result of that would be negligible. People who want more kids will simply do so, people who don't, won't. Again, there's the danger of social engineering.

As it stands, increasing immigration would be a poor idea. As it is, the current immigration policy has some flaws as some posters have mentioned.

It may have some flaws but flaws can be fixed. If we aren't going to start pumping out more babies (and we aren't) then immigration has to be the answer.

[CaptainCrunch]

I'd like to put myself out for stud service.

[Bownesian]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

If we aren't going to start pumping out more babies (and we aren't) then immigration has to be the answer.

My wife and I are doing our best. We have twins in the oven that are due in 5 weeks or so :-)

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

It may have some flaws but flaws can be fixed. If we aren't going to start pumping out more babies (and we aren't) then immigration has to be the answer.

Yeah, I agree.

I probably should have added that while increasing immigration under the current system isn't a good idea, keeping things as they are until the flaws can be fixed is the way to go.

[Glenflame]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

My wife and I are doing our best. We have twins in the oven that are due in 5 weeks or so :-)

Come on, two more!

[EVERLAST]

I had a dream last night that all the children that were prevented through birth control and abortion ....."just showed up" ....and they were MAD.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by EVERLAST

I had a dream last night that all the children that were prevented through birth control and abortion ....."just showed up" ....and they were MAD.

I don't think that's normal. There's pills for that.

[EVERLAST]

I AM not normal

[Bownesian]

Originally Posted by Glenflame

Come on, two more!

This may be TMI but, these two are miracles of modern science and there are two more on ice still. Just got back from the 32 week ultrasound and they are both huge 5 lb 5 oz, 5 lb 4oz... and there's still 5 weeks to go at least. I'm hoping for a towering shutdown defence pair...

[tete]

Originally Posted by Bownesian

This may be TMI but, these two are miracles of modern science and there are two more on ice still. Just got back from the 32 week ultrasound and they are both huge 5 lb 5 oz, 5 lb 4oz... and there's still 5 weeks to go at least. I'm hoping for a towering shutdown defence pair...

Congrats! One of my best friends has 3 month old twins via IVF here in Calgary. They're miracle babies.

[SebC]

Aussie style pensions: government mandates that you put money away, that money is invested (by you, or whoever you chose to manage it), and it's your money when you retire. Get rid of defined benefit, shift everything to defined contribution and make people pay for themselves.

[Jedi Ninja]

This isn't a birth rate issue or an immigration issue. And neither of those silver bullets will resolve the problem either. The problem is that the modern concept of retirement is based on unrealistic expectations and is unsustainable. If we need an additional pool of labour to care for aging boomers, the pool will come from eliminating mandatory retirement and extending the CPP eligibility age to 67 or even 70. That's the only thing that's going to work.

[Thunderball]

Originally Posted by Jedi Ninja

This isn't a birth rate issue or an immigration issue. And neither of those silver bullets will resolve the problem either. The problem is that the modern concept of retirement is based on unrealistic expectations and is unsustainable. If we need an additional pool of labour to care for aging boomers, the pool will come from eliminating mandatory retirement and extending the CPP eligibility age to 67 or even 70. That's the only thing that's going to work.

You're absolutely right. There is no magic bullet.

However, your idea, while prudent, doesn't address the whole issue either.

Say you have 50-60 year olds who choose to retire early because they do not want to work anymore and have the money to so. Even if that is only 10% of the boomers, that's still enough to tip the scales the wrong way. They make not draw from CPP for 10-20 years. However, their tax burden drops since they earn much less, and they still use government programs, especially healthcare.

Now, imagine these people live another 25-40 years, so say the average person lives to 85 by then, and that's a lot of years of untaxed, expensive healthcare, since elderly people draw from that system the most. Normally, this isn't an issue because in the past, more taxpayers take their place. Yes, many older workers will claim they've been paying for their programs their entire life, but in reality, they've been paying for the generation before them, and this time for the baby boomers, there aren't going to be enough workers to pay for them. Having the lower and middle class seniors work an extra 3-5 years will only postpone the inevitable.

They'd essentially have to postpone CPP until the mid to upper 70s to make the hit from the baby boomers diminish via attrition, but that is political suicide.

Its really a policy nightmare.

[Cowperson]

A related look at China's demographic's in the LA Times a few days ago under the headline: "China's Elderly Will Overwhelm Nation

By the middle of this century, fully a third of China's population will be age 60 or older, compared with 26% in the United States. China's projected 438 million senior citizens will outnumber the entire U.S. population.

With fewer workers to support an aging society in need of care, China faces the same demographic squeeze confronting Western nations. The difference: China's family-tinkering policy has accelerated a shift that the country is ill-prepared to manage and finance.

"The problem is the age wave is coming while China is still relatively poor," said Richard Jackson of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. "China may be the first major country to grow old before it grows rich."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,6977821.story

Cowperson

[Glenflame]

Originally Posted by Thunderball

You're absolutely right. There is no magic bullet.

However, your idea, while prudent, doesn't address the whole issue either.

Say you have 50-60 year olds who choose to retire early because they do not want to work anymore and have the money to so. Even if that is only 10% of the boomers, that's still enough to tip the scales the wrong way. They make not draw from CPP for 10-20 years. However, their tax burden drops since they earn much less, and they still use government programs, especially healthcare.

Now, imagine these people live another 25-40 years, so say the average person lives to 85 by then, and that's a lot of years of untaxed, expensive healthcare, since elderly people draw from that system the most. Normally, this isn't an issue because in the past, more taxpayers take their place. Yes, many older workers will claim they've been paying for their programs their entire life, but in reality, they've been paying for the generation before them, and this time for the baby boomers, there aren't going to be enough workers to pay for them. Having the lower and middle class seniors work an extra 3-5 years will only postpone the inevitable.

They'd essentially have to postpone CPP until the mid to upper 70s to make the hit from the baby boomers diminish via attrition, but that is political suicide.

Its really a policy nightmare.

I agree with you.

The CPP and 401 were designed for a life expectancy of about 70 years back to 40 years ago (or 30 years ago). Now it is 85 or even longer (if any magic biologic medication shows up to help extend life).

The final solution is everybody in North America will have to lower the level of their quality life including health care, retirement age, more taxes, etc..

[Knalus]

Glenflame, Thunderball, dead on.

Our problem in a broader sense is that our current system overall (public, private, economy, education, health care... everything) is based on continuous growth from the bottom. And currently that is growth in everything. What we need is to re-jig the system to take advantage of the benefits of a smaller population, workforce, ect., while still allowing for an increase in quality of life. Without the increase in quality of life (or at the very least, stagnation, which isn't very palatable), you aren't going to have a change people will willingly do.

[edmontonice]

Originally Posted by fotze

In the case of Apegga, they definitely do not have higher standards than many other countries, they are ridiculously rigid on completely irrelevant things. Like not allowing a PhD to register until they took a 1st year course....that they had taught! Another 35 year drilling engineer who had to take Econ 209, embarrassing.

I am glad I didn't have to take those brutal exams american engineers have to take.

The problem with these professional organzations is that they are inundated with academics who rarely practice in the real world, also the reason they do run these organizations (they have time to do so).

OT by now, but that's not accurate. Canadian standards are much higher than most countries out there. Case in point- that "brutal" exam to practise in the USA is actually kind of a joke. The pass rate for U of A grads is in the mid 90s, while the American pass rate is something like 65%.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Glenflame

I agree with you.

The CPP and 401 were designed for a life expectancy of about 70 years back to 40 years ago (or 30 years ago). Now it is 85 or even longer (if any magic biologic medication shows up to help extend life).

The final solution is everybody in North America will have to lower the level of their quality life including health care, retirement age, more taxes, etc..

I always cringe when the words "Final Solution" are uttered in a discussion about population demographics.