Demographic scenarios in "Fertility Day"

(To Antonio Vecchio)
04/10/16

The demographic aspect is a decisive aspect for defining the geopolitical posture of states and their role in the international forum.

The topic, on a publication that assigns the utmost importance to security and defense issues, does not surprise the reader, given the profound geostrategic implications deriving from it.

Estimating the increase in population, its progressive aging, and observing the migration dynamics, today - more than ever - is equivalent to dealing with issues closely linked to the future of our society and its security, while allowing, at the same time, to draw important predictive data on which to base possible answers.

The world population is aging. Quickly. And it is also increasing.

The US Census, an American government body that deals with demography, writes in "An Aging World 2015", a document prepared for the US federal government.

Aging is mainly produced by the lengthening of life expectancy, increased by advances in medicine and improved quality of life, even at work.

It also depends on the decreased fertility rate (TFR), which corresponds to the number of children per woman: when it is lower than 2.1, known as "replacement rate"And threshold considered physiological, the population tends to age, as happens today in Europe where the average is 1,6, albeit slightly increasing.

In Asia and Latin America, on the other hand, it is much higher, although decreasing from 6 to 3 children per woman, destined, from here to the 2050, to decrease again.

On the contrary, Africa is the only continent that in the 2050 will have a severance pay above 2.1 per woman (at the moment it is 4,4).

Of the 7,3 billion inhabitants of the planet, the elderly - (those at the age of 65 or more) - today correspond to the 8,5%: 617,1 million individuals.

Number that will increase by 60% in the next 15 years, when the generation of baby boomers - those born after the Second World War - will have left active work.

In the 2030 the elderly will have risen to one billion, the 12% on a global scale, and in the 2050 they will reach 1,6 billion, equal to the 16,7% of the total population, then climbed to 9,4 billion people.

The over eighty, from here to the 2050 will triple, and in 23 countries of Asia will become four times as many.

An exponential growth, measurable every year in 27,1 millions of new seniors, whose speed is even more evident if we consider that when in the 2012 the global population reached 7 billions, 526 millions of these (equal to 8%) were subjects of age higher than 65 years; and that only three years later, in the 2015, the elderly population group had already increased by 55 million, reaching 8,5% of the total.

The aging of the population does not proceed in the same way everywhere.

Africa, thanks to its TFR, is the only continent destined to remain young for a long time, considering that in the 2050 it will have "only" 150,5 millions of elderly, 7% of the total, still equal to four times the current 40,6 million (given 2015).

Asia, followed closely by Latin America, will lead the ranking of the oldest countries by virtue of its large population: 617 million were the elderly in 2015, destined to grow exponentially.

In the 2050, among the top ten most populated countries, five will be Asians with India and China respectively in first and second place (1,57 bn and 1,47 bn), followed by the USA with "only" 397 mln. (The two nations will however have different aging trajectories, due to the different fertility rate: when Indiawill have exceeded by population in the 2030, China will have only half of its senior citizens, 128,9 mln against 238,8 mln).

And Europe?

The demographic trend of the European Union from here to the 2060, as reflected in "The 2015 Aging Report" by the Commission (March 2015), does not seem rosy.

Even in the old continent, fertility rate, life expectancy and migratory flows will dramatically affect the future.

In the 2050, if the current trend does not change, Europe will continue to be the oldest continent with seniors over 25% (they were 17,5% in 2015), and all countries except two - (Kosovo and Iceland) - having at least 20% of people over sixty-five.

An irreversible aging process, which will bring the elderly, as early as the 2020, "for the first time in history ", to surpass individuals under five years of life: in 2050 they will dub them, 15,6% against 7,2% of very young.

An unstoppable phenomenon, which is placed in the system with the overall increase in the world population - destined to touch the 7 billions. within the 2050 and to exceed 9 billions. by the end of the century - it portends an old continent increasingly closed in on itself and surrounded by demographically more dynamic realities.

(The projections for the EU and UK suggest only a slight increase in population over the next 35 years - we will be 526 mln. In the 2050 -, essentially due to the continuation of the migration phenomenon).

A scenario that studied with appropriate simulation models, also outlines, from here to the 2060, a gradual decrease (-8,2%) of the useful work force (subjects between the ages of 20 - 64 "usable" years in the production process): 19 millions of people no longer usable (in the Euro area the percentage of fall will be 9,2%, equal to about 14 million workers) .

And an employment level (age 20-64) that, having reached the peak of 215 million in the 2022, will start to go down to 202 million in the 2060.

What can we deduce from the picture above? Here are some considerations for our country:

  • the aging of the population will require new welfare policies and additional investments in public health in the coming years, sustainable only with an enlargement of the contribution base and a decrease in the services provided today in universal form;

  • the migration phenomenon, coming mainly from the sub-Saharan belt - (the one with severance pay equal to or greater than 7 children per woman) - is destined to continue indefinitely: the promises of bilateral agreements between the EU and individual states aimed at encouraging local economies risk breaking on the numerical data of the native populations.

  • the inclusion of new immigrant citizens, favored by the continuation of the migratory phenomenon, may be functional to the needs of our society with a view to a "demographic coverage" (also to compensate for the aforementioned reduction in working power) and the necessary enlargement of the contribution base;

  • the reception, however, should not be generalized - on pain of the "belgianisation" of the host country -, but strictly controlled and adapted to the socio-economic needs of those who welcome, by identifying paths of gradual "absorption" in the legal framework and local culture, bearing in mind that "integration" is such only in reference to our socio-value system;

  • the DINK pairs (Double Income, No Kids: "double salary no child"), now common to all western societies, are destined to remain decisive for long years, being the product of a mostly cultural spring (think only of the reactions raised by the recent, sacrosanct - perhaps questionable in form - campaign for the "Fertility day").

It will then be necessary to find tools that make it very convenient to have children, as it is today to change the fixtures of the house, or scrap an old car.

Urgent, concrete measures that go directly into the pockets of families and influence their quality of life; things that the French cousins ​​have been doing for years.

But above all cultural initiatives, because the denaturality that - it is often remembered - is a phenomenon transversal to all social classes, not only to the less well-off -, is in free fall, as the Economist recently wrote, not only in states like Italy and Greece, which have suffered a great deal from the crisis, but also in situations such as Australia and Norway, which have just touched it; and in countries such as Denmark, in which enormous, over time, public, economic or parental leave interventions, in support of parenting have been.

On the other hand, our country has started making fewer children long before the 2008.

If in the fifties - as Giulio Meotti recently wrote - the Italian fertility rate was among the highest in Europe (2,5 children per woman, second only to that of France), already in the 1987 (in the midst of an expansionary phase) , the severance pay had fallen in many Italian regions far below the unit (Campania, in those years among the most fruitful regions with a severance pay equal to 1,80, was in any case behind Sweden, strong of 1,87).

What to do then? To begin with, it would be enough - as Caro Blangiardo reminds us on IL FOGLIO del 25 agosto us - to pick up a document from 40 pages called "National Plan for the Family" (http://www.politichefamiglia.it/media/1055/piano-famiglia-definitivo-7-giugno-2012-def.pdf), approved by the Monti Executive in the 2012, without any follow-up since then.

It indicates the guidelines to follow for a national family support policy, including tax and economic equity measures to provide oxygen to family units, housing measures aimed at the purchase and rental of houses by young people couples, support actions, including economic support for parenting and child care, etc.

And then many, but many other campaigns to support fertility (perhaps better than the one just ended), in spite of the many beautiful souls that live in our country, ready to accuse any action in this sense as "regime".

It would be a first step to avoid the end due to the consumption of a society, of a civilization.

Because of this, after all, it is about.

History is there to remind us; and if it is true, as it is true, that often it is not repeated, it is certain - as General Camporini recently recalled - that very often rhymes.

(photo: US Army)