I understand that there's a chance we might reverse the current trend of the population decline and figure out a way out of it. However, to my understanding, in 20-30 years things might not be pleasant for aging generation especially if we don't have enough younger people - both economically and socially.
My question is, other than some countries making policy decisions (increased immigration, trying to reverse the trends and etc.), is there anyone working on solutions? The vague questions I have - how would a nation with mostly elder population maintain the infrastructure, deal with increased need for palliative care, coverage of labour intensive jobs?
Google-ing around only results in very generic responses from policy side, usual discussions of how we have this problem and some company X working on robots for elderly.
As someone who doesn't currently have children and is uncertain about having them in the future, I've been pondering this issue.
I'm thinking that there should be an establishment of a non-profit where individuals could join during their early retirement years, typically in their 50s or 60s, when they still possess the capability to care for those older than themselves. This would be done under the supervision of professional caregivers.
The time they contribute would be documented as a form of currency. This way, when these individuals reach their 80s, they could use this accumulated "time" to receive care and support in return.
The primary cause is wasting women's time. Statistically speaking, biological fertility declines secularly from menarche to menopause--roughly 15 to 45 years of age. We discourage women having children below 18 and the risks of bad outcomes for mother and child go up a lot after 40. So realistically there are 22 years in which women can have children. In that time they have to find a good partner and establish a household and enough security to raise the children.
Creeping credentialism is a major problem in developed countries. In the 1960s a career could be started with high-school education; now a degree and preferably a higher degree is required. These take four to ten years out of that 22 year window.
Following the credential, time is required to establish an income stream and some savings for household formation: a career. This takes longer than it did in the 1960s when manufacturing jobs were "good jobs".
Establishing a household takes longer than it did in the past too. Having got education, people are choosier about where to live and where they want to school their future children. So that can take another five years before they start having children.
With credential, career, and housing, you only have 7 to 12 years left. In that time, mathematically you are overwhelmingly likely to have fewer children than if you started with 22 years available. And these 7 to 12 years are those with lowest fertility and highest risk of complications.
(Women have been sold egg-freezing and such as workarounds; the reality is that these don't have good chances of success and are very expensive besides.)
Both credentialism and housing/schooling are zero-sum Red Queen races, but they are very deeply embedded and will be very difficult to uproot and replace. To reverse fertility decline we need to arrange things so that women can have children young and start their careers later without feeling penalized--especially compared to women who choose not to have children. There is your problem, I guess.
Is there a problem?
It would work just like now; old people keep working until they die and younger people can't get jobs because old people are taking all the work. The infrastructure doesn't get maintained, just like now, the palliative care is given only to the rich, just like now, hard labor is done with tools, just like now.