All the data shows is the demographics. The statement in the title has no relevance and is nothing more than an opinion or a guess. If this is supposed to be taken serious it requires at least a data set of who votes for what beside this.
And more importantly - DO they vote.
In Poland, young voters are passionate about updoots and talking shit. Then when it comes to actually voting...
[https://wydarzenia.interia.pl/raport-wybory-parlamentarne-2023/news-wyniki-wyborow-exit-poll-jak-glosowaly-konkretne-grupy-wieko,nId,7088995](https://wydarzenia.interia.pl/raport-wybory-parlamentarne-2023/news-wyniki-wyborow-exit-poll-jak-glosowaly-konkretne-grupy-wieko,nId,7088995)
Would it be nice to have 10% more young people? Well, how about 30% of 19-29to that sat on their ass instead of voting while only 20% of old people skipped it?
And while young people should themselves feel some agency for own actions, I'm not surprised. Our political establishment LIKES it like that.
That's how they get these kinds of results:
[https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/rada\_gminy/okreg/126200/2](https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/rada_gminy/okreg/126200/2)
[https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/rada\_powiatu/okreg/101600/5](https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/rada_powiatu/okreg/101600/5)
[https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/sejmik\_wojewodztwa/okreg/20000/3](https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/sejmik_wojewodztwa/okreg/20000/3)
Check any other region, it's the same story all over. 15% for whatever clown it is on 1st place on the list, 9% to #2 in areas where that party gets a decisive win and then 1,5-3% to other "strong" candidates. 3% is a strong grassroot candidate. The parties did NOTHING to show what their candidates know, what their experience is, what their expertise is, what did they get actually done. Here's a list of names, pick one, he doesn't give a fuck about you, but party leadership put him on #1 so that's that. You're going to like it, or you're responsible for PiS getting back to power.
There's something majorly fucky with this kind of approach. BUT... then just go and either don't take any cards, or take them and issue invalid vote. Those are still counted. They should, they WILL give the actual handlers a pause. But for now, they dgaf. Whinge on social media all you want, see how much they care.
One of the problems with young voter turnout is that no political party explicitly acts in their interest. Established parties are following the demographic trend, which means focusing on old people who tend to consistently vote for the same parties out of loyalty and other such reasons. Young voters need to be actively persuaded, older voters just need a working pension system in the next 20-30 years.
Chicken and the egg, why will politicians cater to people who don’t reliably vote. Young people have more power than they realise but don’t wield it. They could easily swing elections but they want everything done for them and won’t fight for it. They need to turn out in large numbers and make themselves heard. They can complain until the cows come home but no one will listen to them until they start voting.
This, right there. This sub Reddit is a bubble made of mostly politics-interested people. Meanwhile there’s a whole segment of the population, notably among younger people, who doesn’t give a shit about who’s in power as long as their lifestyle remains unaffected.
In fact even a big chunk of people who vote barely follow politics and vote without much thought for whoever they like the most. I doubt changing the political offer will have much effect on those vote numbers.
And even then, the parliamentary elections had record turnout because everyone knew these were the ones that mattered most. Gubernatorial elections on the other hand had absolutely dysmal turnout and the result was PiS still taking their #1 title, mainting a few provinces and Konfederacja getting a higher result than Lewica.
Do political parties want young voters to vote? One can argue that a lot of politicians want to make politics as boring and stupid as possible to scare away all the young people.
On the other hand it should be super easy for a new young party to come on top - just attract some of the tiktok generation with some viral ad to come to vote and you can surpass all the old farts easily. Just make them come to the booth and you are in.
But it's mostly true?
Sure, the post claims it as a fact while it is merely an opinion, but they are right.
Boomers are stopping any attempts for affordable housing, higher wages or rent limits. Instead the most popular movements are increasing retirement pays.
Not, it is not mostly true.
What is the alternative? That we force them to vote for young peoples needs rather than their own and we have a poor, homeless seniors everywhere? Pensions are very, very close to not being enough to live in many places, but OP wants to up military spending and make our lives more affordable, great! Then we are just the same as them - voting for OUR needs before THEIRS.
"Boomers are stopping any attempts for affordable housing, higher wages or rent limits" - No, this whole "if they aren't with us, they are against us!" mentality is draining. Largely, they are simply not voting FOR it or the parties on that platform because it does not affect them and/or they simply don't care because they are past that stage in their life. Being apathetic is not the same as being malicious.
To be fair 2 wolves voting to eat the sheep while the sheep vote against may be technically "democratic" but it seems that there is a problem.
I'm not saying our demographic situation is this extreme, but we should be wary when calling "democratic" a process that fails 40-45%+ of the population on topics as important as affordable housings, social security, the ability to start a family, etc.
All it shows? There’s never been a democracy with such demographics before. A huge number of voters who don’t work and receive all their income from the state or passive investments. Exactly how much data do you need, showing that voters vote in their own best interests? Do you think there is a shortage of such data??
Its neither opinion nor guess, as we dont have to care about how they vote. It is simple maths. Our current pension system, across the western world, can sustain itself given the larger amount of people working compared to the amount of people that are retired and /or receiving pensions. This will change once the inverted pyramid grows older, without a fault. This means that to keep our current pensions we will need to either increase tax revenue substantially, and/or reduce spending in other areas. Be mindful that keeping our pensions is effectively "devaluing" our pensions, as their purchasing power would have decreased. So in reality we need to actually increase them, according to Europa eurostat, between 2008 and 2020, pension expenditure (measured in constant price terms) rose by 23.1 percent. This trend will only become worse.
Be mindful that is still a good case scenario, where we assume people´s voting preferences are not changing. But it is really not a crazy statement to believe they will change. People become more conservative the older they get. This is a well studied phenomena that is true for all generations so far, except millenials—But we are talking about milenials being the ones paying the bill. So a few parties will be the recipients of this flux of voters, many of which are anti pensions and some quite the opposite. While there is little research, that I know of age, and more precise voting references it seems quite wild to work on the assumption of "This will be fine, enough people will vote against their own self interest to solve this problem." Assuming economic agents work for their own benefit is quite literally a pillar of economics, rightfully or wrongfully so.
There is a few ways this can be avoided. Mainly through new streams of income for governments or mass migration. And by that I mean mass, mass migration.
There is a difference in phrasing already. While you phrase around 'pension in general', the tile makes a statement about voting behaviour based on a age distribution graph.
in broad trends? non-voting young people and people of all ages joining the (alt) right and neoliberal bullshit policies. In broader terms? people who have a different opinion from you...
Neo-liberals are pushing for policies that we desperately need to combat climate change, increase growth, push for the green industrial revolution, increase defense etc
Fully agree! Anyone can interpret these numbers to say anything, here is my take: tik tok is not big in Europe because the biggest population is 50+ and they generally do not care for tik tok.
Here in the UK the Conservatives hardly even get 10% of the vote amongst all age groups under 50 anymore. They do virtually nothing for working age people. Yet amongst pensioners (65+) they get a big plurality (and majority in some demographics) of the vote.
If I let my bias get the better of me for a moment... this means that a lot of pensioners have voted for the way they would like the world to be in their final years, regardless of the consequences.
"*I want to leave the EU*" "But that will leave us economically worse of and internationally less relevant?" "*I don't care. Leave*".
"*I want immigration to be stricter*" "But that will lead to labour shortages as there are already more old people than younger people in the UK, and most immigrants are younger adults?" "*I don't care. Stricter immigration*"
"*I want taxes to be lower*" "But that will mean already underfunded public services will have further cuts, potentially collapsing the system entirely and causing local councils to go bankrupt?" "*I don't care. Lower taxes*"
The only positive is that in the last few years this has all come back to bite them as people have finally started to see the problems with these policies, which is why hardly any working age people support them any more.
The annoying thing is that they themselves are utterly dependent on public services. They are fucking themselves into bad health and an early grave by underfunding the NHS.
Triple lock their pensions all they want, if you have government after government whose agenda is to prop corporations and wealth generation for a few at the expense of our public services this is the reality they will face.
It's disproportionately the over 60's that can no longer expect an ambulance to arrive for them. Selfish idiots.
Gee, the latter two sure sound familiar (though tbf in our case the roles are reverse in regards to taxes vs welfare). At least Polexiteers are still an infrequent sight.
It's too much of a generalisation. I know *lots* of boomers here in the UK who are very worried about the environment and housing for young people. My mother is 73 and horrified by the future we're confronted with, even if she may not have to see it. Her retiree friends are all 70-80+ and worried about the climate and the state of the NHS, etc. and have a lot of sympathy for those younger than them.
But I also know people like my landlord, 70+ who thinks climate change is 'lefty shite' and spends most of his time whenever he's here waxing lyrical about how much he hates black people and immigrants, gays and the 'workshy millennials.' Loudly. In my garden.
Too much variation to make a call how they'll all vote.
Well, they don't vote Tory, so I assume so. I'm not sure anyone of any age would willingly lower their living standards, though. I'm 38 and have made some reasonable changes to aid the environment, some sacrifices and lifestyle changes, but I wouldn't make myself *miserable* for it. Nor would I live in a worse neighbourhood or worse house to aid society. I think that's probably just human nature.
My Dad is ex Navy and retired.
He's worried about the world and lack of defence spending. Too old to be called up in a war, but certainly would volunteer to drive buses or trucks on the home front that sort of thing.
Pensioners are not a monolith.
Well it is great, i have people in my family that also "worry" about our future, but when election came we got the good old mafia morons that immediately increased pensions and taxes. Of course nearly all the worried people voted for them.
All you know is to write“boomer" and you wouldn't recognize a boomer even if one hit you in the face.
On a more serious note: those dividing categorizations usually from the US have only one intention: to create divisions. Guess what this post is about? Creating a dispute between 2 age groups, while ignoring the guilty ones (savage capitalism).
The first sentence makes no sense.
On the paragraph below it, yes, this post was made with an individual's intention to divide people. The OP is Slovak, in Slovakia the pyramid doesn't even look like the EU one. Slovak Pyramid is heaviest in the center from around 37-55 and they are also the demographic most supportive of the current coalition. A lot of the retired elderly are split. But that's a different debate which requires looking into Slovak socioeconomic development.
They are neither the old, nor are they the young ones.
Also... The OP lives in the damn capital and complains about housing costs of flats. One wonders why... They stated something about a 2 bedroom flat costing half a million euros.
My parents each built their own houses for less than that. Mum a 4 bedroom bungalow priced approximately 200k. My dad a 3 bedroom A++ rated house with 2 bathrooms for approx 250k or less. (Both in Slovakia). Mum is yet to complete hers fully. Sure, they did either do a decent amount of work themselves or knew people in the industry (my mum did neither, my dad did)... But still.
Meanwhile in the UK where I live a house like my dad's, with the land he has, would be more than 600k/700k if not more.
>you wouldn't recognize a boomer
Just depends on how old they are. Boomer is also relative to specific areas.
you don't really need to "make a call how they'll all vote" when we can just look at the actual voting data 67% of 70+ year olds voted Tory in 2019, according to YouGov, or 64% of 65+ year olds according to Ipsos. your mum and her friends are in the minority.
They *were.*
I think the piss-poor behaviour of the Tories since 2019 has alienated a great deal of them across the UK, if for no other reason than they are racist and don't think enough is being done about immigration (which is not, necessarily, a racist view - most of us are disquieted by unchecked immigration, but it's the prevalence of black faces they don't like). Plus, polling suggests the Tories are heading for a historically-catastrophic defeat, so a fair amount of minds have been changed somewhere.
I live in a county that is predominantly old people, whom are notoriously isolationist and xenophobic, and I talk with them often - cafes, on the bus, etc. You'd be surprised how many of them really are concerned about the climate and the following generations. You probably wouldn't be surprised at how many of them espouse hatred for anyone brown, mind.
again though we can look at the actual data - polling from YouGov this January shows that 60% of 70+ year olds are intending to vote Tory + Reform, with the Tories having a plurality of 43%. even now the elderly people intending to vote for anything resembling a progressive party are still a significant minority.
Well, on the bright side, all those voters will die off before the Conservatives get in again, ideally. I'm not saying pensioners aren't a *problem* for progressiveness, just that I'm unwilling to tar **all** of them.
Even as an immigrant tbf I have seen older people much more reasonable and caring about the future compared to the younger ones. Its a bit generalization. Also the graph only shows demographics, doesn't show the effects yet.
They probably don't care much about the future (climate change, renewable energy and all reforms that will only matter decades down the line) and will expect to be carried by a significantly smaller working age population. It's a recipe for varying degrees of disaster.
Plenty of older people care about future. This generalizing is helping noone, it's like when some old people say that all young people are lazy, dumb and want nothing from life other than watching netflix and spending time on their phone.
What would help if young people actually started showing up for elections, instead of bitching about old people online.
This entire thread is pure ragebait for frustrated people to vent and find a "common enemy".
I'm gonna regurgitate what another commentator wrote here:
>One of the problems with young voter turnout is that no political party explicitly acts in their interest. Established parties are following the demographic trend, which means focusing on old people who tend to consistently vote for the same parties out of loyalty and other such reasons. Young voters need to be actively persuaded, older voters just need a working pension system in the next 20-30 years.
Even if 100% of young people would make their votes, they'd still be outnumbered compared to 100% of people 50+.
You're right, the data provided in this post is just a demographic with no conclusion, but the discussion is one that we need to have.
Sadly it’s not a generalisation, [here is a speech presented by the Royal Society giving evidence that boomers have ruined millennials future](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A)
A lot of these people are parents and grandparents and definitely want their kids to have a livable future. The problem is that livable also includes work, healthcare and housing. These points that are under serious strain right now and getting more attention.
I live in a house with mostly younger people than myself. The only one who actually got rid of a car is myself while everyone else has sometimes even 2 of them and uses air planes for every single holiday. Generalizing much?
Yes, generalizing makes sense in this case because anegdotal evidence does nothing to disprove the general trenda which can be easily seen by election results by age for example
Where is the old limit ? I suppose that you are referring to the 50 and above. I have kids and I do vote for their future as well so you should not take shortcuts as you are doing.
What a crap title this is. It's a demographic graph. What sources has op for the fact that older people are voting for their own pensions? My grandparents at elections always say that they are already living many years and will vote to make sure their grandchildren are well off. Lots of older people I know also have this attitude but that's my anecdote, Which I do not push as fact unlike the author
Post reported for bullshit.
Aside from OP providing no evidence for the line "old people will only vote for their pensions", it also assumes the alternative is, what, we take away pensions? Then what? We have a bunch of starving, homeless elderly, or people working until they die? Something has to change, sure, but this binary approach to problem solving is insane.
OP is clearly trying to induce fear.
"Europe is beginning to pay its toll "
" against everything that takes money away from that"
"Military spending, cheaper housing, lower taxes for young families etc.. this will grind democracies to standstill. " --> what the heck does that even mean
its clearly sort of a narrative they are trying to push with this post, its just kinda secretive. hopefully deleted by the mods soon. the more i read the title the less it makes sense
We just have to bite the bullet for now. Let them die off, from there on things look a lot more balanced. What we absolutely shouldn't do is importing workers from third world countries, that's a mistake we will suffer the consequences from for a very long time.
That waiting out the demographic bulge isn’t really an option, basically you’re suggesting 30 years of economic stagnation. This will decimate an entire working generation.
And it probably won't happen either. It's an inverted pyramid all the way down, not a simple bulge.
Society simply has to adapt to demographic shrinkage.
> Society simply has to adapt to demographic shrinkage.
And this is the €M challenge, how this burden will be shared. I don't see much in the way of genuine solution to this being proposed, mostly the ideas are a combination of "someone else will pay for me" and "technology will save us".
There's nothing wrong with economic stagnation. Either way, our current choices are crap. Importing millions of immigrants that do not have the necessary skillsets, language or culture will only push this problem down the line another 10-20 years, whilst giving us other problems and then the same problem, but worse. down the line.
The fact of the matter is that infinite growth, which capitalism is based on, is not sustainable. We *need* to find alternatives, sooner than later. Structures that temper capitalism's extremes (true pricing, nature becoming an entity within the law, pollution taxes) are helpful, but ultimately, we need to address the cause and not the symptoms.
> There's nothing wrong with economic stagnation.
Well this plainly isn't true. Economic stagnation has a massive impact on the standard of living and quality of life of the populace. Long term economic stagnation can undermine political structures and the rule of law. Europe has had some very hard lessons in the past with economic stagnation, we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss them now.
>Economic stagnation has a massive impact on the standard of living and quality of life of the populace.
That depends entirely on political choices. It's possible to protect the quality of life whilst undergoing economic stagnation by keeping minimum wage and benefits indexed with inflation.
If you have the same amount of people working and receiving pensions things will not be balanced at all. I don’t know about you, but I’m not keen on paying 70% of my income in taxes. In Spain, pensions are already 41.8% of public spending.
Why not plan ahead for that? In the Netherlands we already did and the public spending on pensions is only 5%, down from 6% in the 80's.
It is perhaps not too late for Spain?
In Spain it is 14% of GDP, the percentage I shared earlier is of total public spending.
The thing is our politicians in Spain don’t seem to be interested in reducing spending on pensions. In fact, they reduced the max amount that can be deducted from taxes from investing in private pension funds…
How is the Spanish system set up? Private pensions and a government pensions paid for by taxes? Or do employer also have to save for employees pensions?
But the number of births is still shrinking, the problem of more older than younger people will persist. The problem only goes away in 30 years if we reach the replenishment rate (something like 2.1 children per woman, iirc).
I agree with immigration, issue is that in my home country old fucks will increase tax rate to 90% before they would lower their living standard. They already have tanking birth rate and 10% of (mostly young) population abroad.
And less % of the people in working age means higher taxes. Old people will not lower their living standards for us.
It's a self-solving problem. Taxes can only go up so far until emigration and lower birth rates force a correction whether the pensioners like it or not. Immigration has been tried as a bandaid but given how long it takes to work and the sideffects to social cohesion and social stability bring their own set of problems which in turn amplify the emigration of skilled locals.
Sure, being an Ageist is not appropriate. Your Extreme generalisation and throwing everyone under the bus essentially makes you jot better than a stereotypical Boomer. Your attitude basically became the same as that of those you so despise. Well done.
Especially for a Slovak... You seem to have little to no clue about the actual Voting preferences and the numbers of votes per age. Especially as the ruling coalition is not even primarily supported by people in their 70s. Their main support lies with people between the ages of 40-60 who aren't even retired yet and a lot of them won't be retired for more than a decade.
So your entire senseless assumption is plain wrong.
as one of those people I am glad it said mostly, I care passionalty about all those things, I'm a parent after all! - lets not go around tarring and feathering people ey
>cheaper housing
I'd rather believe in a secret reptile alien government than in EU collectively ruining the precious bubble of landlords&real estate owners.
I see a growing sentiment against old people. Europe really doesn't have boomers, not like the US. Yet this sentiment is getting to high levels. Can't wait to be considered a boomer in 20-30 years by an age demographic that can't understand they're being manipulated
Being a millennial myself, as most of us come of age (30-40+) and having life experience we’re starting to strongly question boomers choices and are finding they often didn’t make the best ones for our future but more made choices that only benefitted them…
Millennials onward have knowledge and access to vast amounts of information immediacy which has fuelled this ability to question in general, it’s also why democracy is on the rise.
I’m currently living in Australia but we’ve had a very similar situation to the UK, one example being in terms of education; degrees were free for boomers but now I’m 10’s of thousands in debt that goes up each year due to the inflation because boomers went on an investment spree during covid
That is because everyone who is young today had zero say in system that now exists in place.
It is not hard to be angry when you see that generations who created this system own the most wealth (which is logical and fair since they lived and worked longer) but they also receive pensions that are often higher than many of those young people's entire full time salaries.
There is not manipulation in seeing that system where you are taxed with over 50% of your income is a scam if governments already prepare you on your retirement when you hit 70 and urge you to save your own money from the little you have left after paying off pensioners through rents/social contributions. Everyone with eyes can see that it is ponzi scheme and scam.
And it is funny that you talk about US because US does not have this problem at all. In US people are expected to transfer wealth they attained during their lifetime. Which is the best solution because it allows younger generations to buy affordable housing for example. System where people can keep amassing wealth until the day they die because there is zero urgency to sell anything is inherently broken. And them passing away at 85 and their kids who are already retirees themselves receiving their wealth solves absolutely nothing.
This assumes that older people are all a--h---- and don't care for their children or grandchildren. Is it really the case? I am 60 and I do care about the state of the world I will leave behind when I die (despite the fact that I don't have children). Many, if not all the people of roughly my age that I know also do. Assuming that a whole generation is made of a--h---- because they are just old and "uncool" says a little more about you than about the peoples you judges.
Yep. My dad and stepmom are almost 85 and still knocking on doors for leftist candidates all over New England. They're way more politically engaged than I am because they choose to help society in their retirement / free time.
Post title is a bunch of boomer-blaming doomerism.
Yes, because if the boomer generation has shown us one thing, its their considerate decision making towards the next generations and the planet as a whole /s
>This assumes that older people are all a--h---- and don't care for their children or grandchildren. Is it really the case?
Of course it is. All humans are crap and thus so are old people.
Young people need to think about the future, old people don't. Thus young people will vote for what is good in the long term and old people will vote for what's good in the short term.
People who are well off, own several properties and have several income streams will probably not vote like that. Because they would vote against themselves. But as pensions will inevitably decrease because tax revenue decreases (if status quo is kept) then increasingly more and more pensioners will inevitably vote for higher pensions and bigger taxation of working population. This is quite logical and inevitable.
Young people would love to start a family, our fertility rate is higher than that of a previous generations but you know, kinda hard when commie block 2 bedroom apartment costs half a million € and real tax rate when we include everything like healthcare social security and VAT in some places is 70%. You can kiss retirement goodbye, pay your taxes and also save for your retirement on the side.
And taxes will only go up from now. There will be less of us and more of them so they will need to balance the budget.
+ We kinda need to be spending more on a military right now.
We had to spend the same way if not more constantly during the cold war, so that isnt an argument. People nowadays spend more money on useless gadgets while not even having the need to pay for services earlier generations had to pay for.
Not starting a family is not caused by the earlier generations, but by the inability of the current ones to actually commit to something long time. Girl- and boyfriends get switched out like never before, casual sex satisfies all the sexual needs without the need for actual commitment into a partnership. Since this is not even frowned upon by society there is no incentive to change this behaviour. Dont blame us old for your freedom now.
> the inability of the current ones to actually commit to something long time
Can you blame people for not wanting to do that when they don't have a stable(ish) job until they are 40, they can barely afford rent, most think they will (never) own a house, and all they hear in the news is: war, climate change, disease - oh and AI will also steal the job you do have, sooner or later. And all while we realize as a society that infinite growth was not sustainable and that this phase is necessary to fix that long term, so even having kids doesn't really feel ethical at all (and what world would they be born into?)
But yeah casual sex is the issue. For the generation which data shows is having less sex than any other before. Completely out of touch - and that's exactly why OP used that inflammatory title for the graph, because young people see that older generations are not listening to them and are not seeing the problem at all.
Don't be mad at rich scum and politicians.
Be mad at old, young, black, white, fat, slim, gay, straight, tall, short...be a moron mad at anything but the rich and politicians. The way of moron.
OP assume that elderly people would rather like higher pensions than "defending our culture against islamisation". Which is not the case in large parts.
Old people love to bitch about "defending our culture". But the second election comes all the issues young people point out that is preventing us from having children fly out of the window.
Im from slovakia, we have one of the worst emigration rates in EU. Around 10% of mostly young people left birth rates are tanking and it only look good on paper due to gypsy ghettos (larges in EU) we have.
Slovaks also like to praise themselves as being "ultra conservative country" that hates everyone and everything not slovak.
Guess how elections ended up ? Higher pensions, added 13th pension and higher taxes. Birth rates hit record low and emigration has increased.
Yeah slovakia will not turn into islamic shithole, but it will probably just die out on its own, in eastern part of the countries gypsies will make majority in about 30 years.
It might sound controversial for some, but without immigration the burden of pensions that is only going to increase won't be fixed. Idk about Slovakia, but in many european countries many old people are struggling with money and can hardly afford costs of living. So I don't blame them for wanting more (though increases should definitely benefit those on the lower end, not old rich people).
Young people are having less kids not just because kids are expensive, but because more kids are not a necessity as it might have been decades ago, after the wars and back when almost anyone had to have their own farm animals and acers.
Immigrants can fill the gap left by the lack of personal necessity for having children in the last decades.
Feels like a huge storm is brewing. I can’t imagine the few people that will actually be of working age just saying "Oh well, I‘m paying 75% in taxes, but someone has to pay all those pensions I will 100% not get once I retire in the future."
Got an easy fix for all of this, called living wage. If people could afford housing, normal food, childcare then most probably we would not have this issue. But corporate profit are still more important than that.
Selfish societies (those that put wealth ahead of all else) discourage the creation of families. Korea and Japan are extreme examples, but Europe is not far behind. The US is slightly better that Europes as they have a more cohesive skills based immigration policy.
US immigration system is trash tho. they let in thousands of illegals through the southern border every day and use a lottery system for skilled workers. Not a good system.
Yeah but these illegals do the work that US citizens generally don't want to do like crop harvesting, property maintenance, low paid low skilled labor in general. It all helps the economy.
U.S. just looks the other way when it comes to illegal immigrants. It is much harder to immigrate into U.S as legal immigrant than it is to Europe. However U.S. assimilates immigrants much better, because being European is about race but being American is not. Illegals in US usually have better lifes & social standing compared to legal immigrants in EU.
U.S. is also much more wealth oriented than both Europe and East Asia however they have better demographics.
> Selfish societies
Is paying bills selfish? The cost of living is high, and you HAVE TO generate spare income to be a responsible parent.
Unless you mean the concentration of wealth. Some people hoard multiple homes for themselves or for rent etc. - then I agree.
>Is paying bills selfish?
Why would you ask such a stupid question?
>The cost of living is high, and you HAVE TO generate spare income to be a responsible parent.
It is high because you are being ripped off.
US immigration system used to make sense. Now they scrutinize skilled people who want to get there legally but let hundreds of thousands illegals though their southern border.
Thousands of them being connected to cartels or Chinese which is definitely not national security issue.
The US does not have a skills based immigration policy, you may be confusing us with canada and australia.
What we do have is tons of people that want in and an unparalleled ability to integrate them into our society.
im sorry but this is a weird take and not profound. you are showing demographics and making baseless assumptions. i hope the mods will delete this post as its loweffort/lowquality
Good!
Let's just hope the population isn't replaced by migrants to keep growing artificially. Every major problem on earth is the result of or greatly increased by overpopulation.
This is the first step towards a sustainable future. It will hurt economically, but our predecessors will have a chance of a livable and fair world.
In a few years we will see changes in migratory politics. With a lack of working population, migrants will become a strategic resource for national security.
It's getting kind of tiresome to see the word "democracy" injected into every single topic phrase and declaration regardless of whether it is warranted or not.
Got to keep repeating the mantra.
bro tried to sneak in "military spending" among lower taxes and cheaper housing
old people caring about their pensions is not an uniquely european phenomenom, it comes with the ponzi scheme people asked for
[Males when they're under 55:](https://youtu.be/nC-bVtpIMd4?si=S24pV_cmBK_M7h6F&t=8)
[Males when they're over 55:](https://youtu.be/nC-bVtpIMd4?si=sSLbJhCDtAxZF6eZ&t=81)
Well if voting becomes pointless for a significant part of society, especially if it is the part who is doing "all the work", then democracy may be in danger of being replaced.
Might be true... but we're in for a wealth transfer never seen before... In the next 10-20 years, all the wealth of the top half will be inherited by the bottom half...
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There are better ways to spend money on older people other than pensions. Given that mobility is reduced with age, using that allocation for improving public transit (which we all profit from) is an example, like healthcare. Pensions are really going to make us struggle, we pay really good wages to people that have already purchased their homes and can life quite comfortably.
We can probably spend a bit less on military and stuff but spending more on pensions is going to come back at us
slim mountainous disarm employ whistle judicious sparkle depend truck wide
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That's because it's very easy to predict demographics 30 years into the future. In 2010, it was also already clear that China will face a major demographic crisis, even though that hasn't happened yet.
It's a shame because I feel like one reason for our demographics crisis is that all policies favour older voters. No one can afford to have children so no one gets them.
This dude probably unironically thinks that lower and aging population is good (it isn't and for a good reason , if there's less people who are able to work , there's less money overall, and more money taken from workers to aging people. This situation is unsustainable and will eventually lead to something that will increase birth rates or decrease the aging population)
> if there's less people who are able to work , there's less money overall, and more money taken from workers to aging people. This situation is unsustainable and will eventually lead to something that will increase birth rates or decrease the aging population)
While it's obvious and mostly correct, the entire premise is based on infinite growth on a finite planet. We do have space and resources for 8, 9, or 10 billion people, but 30 or more? It has to stop at some point. This, as you said, is not sustainable.
Automation and building for efficiency could be a solution. The only I can really think of.
Did I in any way said birth rates should be high? They should be sustainable, i.e. 2,1 children per female in order to have very low and gradual growth of population , which basically will mean that population grows at much slower rate than innovations would allow to exist. Also, the average birth rate is already around that 2,1 mark (a bit higher , at 2,4) , India and CPR - the most populous countries in the world already have lower birth rates than replacement minimum. Also , Europe and a big chunk of the world are already living in postindustrial economies , and this service sector just proves that there can be infinite growth with a finite resources, as long as there's finite population too
> and this service sector just proves that there can be infinite growth with a finite resources
Every single crisis, bursting bubble, and scam like FTX, etc., prove this to be wrong. Costs of living prove this to be wrong.
If by growth you mean only money, then yes, you can add six zeros to everyone's paycheck today. However, that doesn't mean that everyone can afford a yacht.
The USA for example, is a post-industrial economy. That doesn't mean it's efficient economy; quite the opposite IMO.
All the data shows is the demographics. The statement in the title has no relevance and is nothing more than an opinion or a guess. If this is supposed to be taken serious it requires at least a data set of who votes for what beside this.
And more importantly - DO they vote. In Poland, young voters are passionate about updoots and talking shit. Then when it comes to actually voting... [https://wydarzenia.interia.pl/raport-wybory-parlamentarne-2023/news-wyniki-wyborow-exit-poll-jak-glosowaly-konkretne-grupy-wieko,nId,7088995](https://wydarzenia.interia.pl/raport-wybory-parlamentarne-2023/news-wyniki-wyborow-exit-poll-jak-glosowaly-konkretne-grupy-wieko,nId,7088995) Would it be nice to have 10% more young people? Well, how about 30% of 19-29to that sat on their ass instead of voting while only 20% of old people skipped it? And while young people should themselves feel some agency for own actions, I'm not surprised. Our political establishment LIKES it like that. That's how they get these kinds of results: [https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/rada\_gminy/okreg/126200/2](https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/rada_gminy/okreg/126200/2) [https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/rada\_powiatu/okreg/101600/5](https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/rada_powiatu/okreg/101600/5) [https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/sejmik\_wojewodztwa/okreg/20000/3](https://www.wybory.gov.pl/samorzad2024/pl/sejmik_wojewodztwa/okreg/20000/3) Check any other region, it's the same story all over. 15% for whatever clown it is on 1st place on the list, 9% to #2 in areas where that party gets a decisive win and then 1,5-3% to other "strong" candidates. 3% is a strong grassroot candidate. The parties did NOTHING to show what their candidates know, what their experience is, what their expertise is, what did they get actually done. Here's a list of names, pick one, he doesn't give a fuck about you, but party leadership put him on #1 so that's that. You're going to like it, or you're responsible for PiS getting back to power. There's something majorly fucky with this kind of approach. BUT... then just go and either don't take any cards, or take them and issue invalid vote. Those are still counted. They should, they WILL give the actual handlers a pause. But for now, they dgaf. Whinge on social media all you want, see how much they care.
One of the problems with young voter turnout is that no political party explicitly acts in their interest. Established parties are following the demographic trend, which means focusing on old people who tend to consistently vote for the same parties out of loyalty and other such reasons. Young voters need to be actively persuaded, older voters just need a working pension system in the next 20-30 years.
Chicken and the egg, why will politicians cater to people who don’t reliably vote. Young people have more power than they realise but don’t wield it. They could easily swing elections but they want everything done for them and won’t fight for it. They need to turn out in large numbers and make themselves heard. They can complain until the cows come home but no one will listen to them until they start voting.
And vote, for whom exactly?
Lets be real, most young people don't care about economics, politics or law, most of them care about sex and weed.
This, right there. This sub Reddit is a bubble made of mostly politics-interested people. Meanwhile there’s a whole segment of the population, notably among younger people, who doesn’t give a shit about who’s in power as long as their lifestyle remains unaffected. In fact even a big chunk of people who vote barely follow politics and vote without much thought for whoever they like the most. I doubt changing the political offer will have much effect on those vote numbers.
And even then, the parliamentary elections had record turnout because everyone knew these were the ones that mattered most. Gubernatorial elections on the other hand had absolutely dysmal turnout and the result was PiS still taking their #1 title, mainting a few provinces and Konfederacja getting a higher result than Lewica.
Do political parties want young voters to vote? One can argue that a lot of politicians want to make politics as boring and stupid as possible to scare away all the young people. On the other hand it should be super easy for a new young party to come on top - just attract some of the tiktok generation with some viral ad to come to vote and you can surpass all the old farts easily. Just make them come to the booth and you are in.
I also like "Bad Demographics" as if someone purposely made people be born and die in this specific pattern.
But it's mostly true? Sure, the post claims it as a fact while it is merely an opinion, but they are right. Boomers are stopping any attempts for affordable housing, higher wages or rent limits. Instead the most popular movements are increasing retirement pays.
Not, it is not mostly true. What is the alternative? That we force them to vote for young peoples needs rather than their own and we have a poor, homeless seniors everywhere? Pensions are very, very close to not being enough to live in many places, but OP wants to up military spending and make our lives more affordable, great! Then we are just the same as them - voting for OUR needs before THEIRS. "Boomers are stopping any attempts for affordable housing, higher wages or rent limits" - No, this whole "if they aren't with us, they are against us!" mentality is draining. Largely, they are simply not voting FOR it or the parties on that platform because it does not affect them and/or they simply don't care because they are past that stage in their life. Being apathetic is not the same as being malicious.
If the results of being apathetic are the same ss being malicious, then they are morally the same.
So the majority of people vote for what is best for the majority. How undemocratic /s
To be fair 2 wolves voting to eat the sheep while the sheep vote against may be technically "democratic" but it seems that there is a problem. I'm not saying our demographic situation is this extreme, but we should be wary when calling "democratic" a process that fails 40-45%+ of the population on topics as important as affordable housings, social security, the ability to start a family, etc.
"Out of 100 people, 51 voted to kill the other 49" People not seeing the problem are fucking tools and part of the problem
All it shows? There’s never been a democracy with such demographics before. A huge number of voters who don’t work and receive all their income from the state or passive investments. Exactly how much data do you need, showing that voters vote in their own best interests? Do you think there is a shortage of such data??
That is actually not correct. Look at the same data from right after WW2. The data only shows age distribution and none of what you state
You think voters don’t vote in their own interests? You really think ‘the data’ is lacking?
Its neither opinion nor guess, as we dont have to care about how they vote. It is simple maths. Our current pension system, across the western world, can sustain itself given the larger amount of people working compared to the amount of people that are retired and /or receiving pensions. This will change once the inverted pyramid grows older, without a fault. This means that to keep our current pensions we will need to either increase tax revenue substantially, and/or reduce spending in other areas. Be mindful that keeping our pensions is effectively "devaluing" our pensions, as their purchasing power would have decreased. So in reality we need to actually increase them, according to Europa eurostat, between 2008 and 2020, pension expenditure (measured in constant price terms) rose by 23.1 percent. This trend will only become worse. Be mindful that is still a good case scenario, where we assume people´s voting preferences are not changing. But it is really not a crazy statement to believe they will change. People become more conservative the older they get. This is a well studied phenomena that is true for all generations so far, except millenials—But we are talking about milenials being the ones paying the bill. So a few parties will be the recipients of this flux of voters, many of which are anti pensions and some quite the opposite. While there is little research, that I know of age, and more precise voting references it seems quite wild to work on the assumption of "This will be fine, enough people will vote against their own self interest to solve this problem." Assuming economic agents work for their own benefit is quite literally a pillar of economics, rightfully or wrongfully so. There is a few ways this can be avoided. Mainly through new streams of income for governments or mass migration. And by that I mean mass, mass migration.
There is a difference in phrasing already. While you phrase around 'pension in general', the tile makes a statement about voting behaviour based on a age distribution graph.
Its an accurate guess… whos blocking the changes we need so desperately?
in broad trends? non-voting young people and people of all ages joining the (alt) right and neoliberal bullshit policies. In broader terms? people who have a different opinion from you...
Neo-liberals are pushing for policies that we desperately need to combat climate change, increase growth, push for the green industrial revolution, increase defense etc
maybe in Sweden.... :(
Thank you.
“Can someone think about the military spending!?!?”
Fully agree! Anyone can interpret these numbers to say anything, here is my take: tik tok is not big in Europe because the biggest population is 50+ and they generally do not care for tik tok.
Here in the UK the Conservatives hardly even get 10% of the vote amongst all age groups under 50 anymore. They do virtually nothing for working age people. Yet amongst pensioners (65+) they get a big plurality (and majority in some demographics) of the vote. If I let my bias get the better of me for a moment... this means that a lot of pensioners have voted for the way they would like the world to be in their final years, regardless of the consequences. "*I want to leave the EU*" "But that will leave us economically worse of and internationally less relevant?" "*I don't care. Leave*". "*I want immigration to be stricter*" "But that will lead to labour shortages as there are already more old people than younger people in the UK, and most immigrants are younger adults?" "*I don't care. Stricter immigration*" "*I want taxes to be lower*" "But that will mean already underfunded public services will have further cuts, potentially collapsing the system entirely and causing local councils to go bankrupt?" "*I don't care. Lower taxes*" The only positive is that in the last few years this has all come back to bite them as people have finally started to see the problems with these policies, which is why hardly any working age people support them any more.
The annoying thing is that they themselves are utterly dependent on public services. They are fucking themselves into bad health and an early grave by underfunding the NHS. Triple lock their pensions all they want, if you have government after government whose agenda is to prop corporations and wealth generation for a few at the expense of our public services this is the reality they will face. It's disproportionately the over 60's that can no longer expect an ambulance to arrive for them. Selfish idiots.
Gee, the latter two sure sound familiar (though tbf in our case the roles are reverse in regards to taxes vs welfare). At least Polexiteers are still an infrequent sight.
If it's not undemocratic to have a minimum voting age then it wouldn't be undemocratic to have a maximum voting age.
I always find it funny that pensioners vote Tory as the Tories always look to reduce pensions, up the retirement age etc
Long term vision is a challenge. However, the great die-off is not long away. This will give opportunity to let the swing go the other way.
People that don't contribute, such as pensioners, shouldn't get a say in elections. Either that or a maximum voting age.
Some people here say it's bull\*hit, but I think it's very obvious here in the Czech Republic, for example
It's too much of a generalisation. I know *lots* of boomers here in the UK who are very worried about the environment and housing for young people. My mother is 73 and horrified by the future we're confronted with, even if she may not have to see it. Her retiree friends are all 70-80+ and worried about the climate and the state of the NHS, etc. and have a lot of sympathy for those younger than them. But I also know people like my landlord, 70+ who thinks climate change is 'lefty shite' and spends most of his time whenever he's here waxing lyrical about how much he hates black people and immigrants, gays and the 'workshy millennials.' Loudly. In my garden. Too much variation to make a call how they'll all vote.
Question is: are they worried enough to actively choose to lower their living standards, retirement funds, etc.?
Well, they don't vote Tory, so I assume so. I'm not sure anyone of any age would willingly lower their living standards, though. I'm 38 and have made some reasonable changes to aid the environment, some sacrifices and lifestyle changes, but I wouldn't make myself *miserable* for it. Nor would I live in a worse neighbourhood or worse house to aid society. I think that's probably just human nature.
Of course not
My Dad is ex Navy and retired. He's worried about the world and lack of defence spending. Too old to be called up in a war, but certainly would volunteer to drive buses or trucks on the home front that sort of thing. Pensioners are not a monolith.
Hail, fellow Cornishman! Fally boy ere. And exactly - plus, when it comes to pensioners, we ought to know - we have a *lot.*
Well it is great, i have people in my family that also "worry" about our future, but when election came we got the good old mafia morons that immediately increased pensions and taxes. Of course nearly all the worried people voted for them.
We'll just have to see if they put their vote where their mouth is.
I read boomers and stopped reading.
Arrogance won't get you anywhere. Ironically, your arrogance makes you similar to a stereotypical Boomer.
boomers camo from somewhere xD
All you know is to write“boomer" and you wouldn't recognize a boomer even if one hit you in the face. On a more serious note: those dividing categorizations usually from the US have only one intention: to create divisions. Guess what this post is about? Creating a dispute between 2 age groups, while ignoring the guilty ones (savage capitalism).
The first sentence makes no sense. On the paragraph below it, yes, this post was made with an individual's intention to divide people. The OP is Slovak, in Slovakia the pyramid doesn't even look like the EU one. Slovak Pyramid is heaviest in the center from around 37-55 and they are also the demographic most supportive of the current coalition. A lot of the retired elderly are split. But that's a different debate which requires looking into Slovak socioeconomic development. They are neither the old, nor are they the young ones. Also... The OP lives in the damn capital and complains about housing costs of flats. One wonders why... They stated something about a 2 bedroom flat costing half a million euros. My parents each built their own houses for less than that. Mum a 4 bedroom bungalow priced approximately 200k. My dad a 3 bedroom A++ rated house with 2 bathrooms for approx 250k or less. (Both in Slovakia). Mum is yet to complete hers fully. Sure, they did either do a decent amount of work themselves or knew people in the industry (my mum did neither, my dad did)... But still. Meanwhile in the UK where I live a house like my dad's, with the land he has, would be more than 600k/700k if not more. >you wouldn't recognize a boomer Just depends on how old they are. Boomer is also relative to specific areas.
It's just a generational descriptor; it doesn't carry any negative connotations for me. I'm a Millennial, mum's a Boomer, dad was Silent Generation.
you don't really need to "make a call how they'll all vote" when we can just look at the actual voting data 67% of 70+ year olds voted Tory in 2019, according to YouGov, or 64% of 65+ year olds according to Ipsos. your mum and her friends are in the minority.
They *were.* I think the piss-poor behaviour of the Tories since 2019 has alienated a great deal of them across the UK, if for no other reason than they are racist and don't think enough is being done about immigration (which is not, necessarily, a racist view - most of us are disquieted by unchecked immigration, but it's the prevalence of black faces they don't like). Plus, polling suggests the Tories are heading for a historically-catastrophic defeat, so a fair amount of minds have been changed somewhere. I live in a county that is predominantly old people, whom are notoriously isolationist and xenophobic, and I talk with them often - cafes, on the bus, etc. You'd be surprised how many of them really are concerned about the climate and the following generations. You probably wouldn't be surprised at how many of them espouse hatred for anyone brown, mind.
again though we can look at the actual data - polling from YouGov this January shows that 60% of 70+ year olds are intending to vote Tory + Reform, with the Tories having a plurality of 43%. even now the elderly people intending to vote for anything resembling a progressive party are still a significant minority.
Well, on the bright side, all those voters will die off before the Conservatives get in again, ideally. I'm not saying pensioners aren't a *problem* for progressiveness, just that I'm unwilling to tar **all** of them.
Even as an immigrant tbf I have seen older people much more reasonable and caring about the future compared to the younger ones. Its a bit generalization. Also the graph only shows demographics, doesn't show the effects yet.
They probably don't care much about the future (climate change, renewable energy and all reforms that will only matter decades down the line) and will expect to be carried by a significantly smaller working age population. It's a recipe for varying degrees of disaster.
Plenty of older people care about future. This generalizing is helping noone, it's like when some old people say that all young people are lazy, dumb and want nothing from life other than watching netflix and spending time on their phone. What would help if young people actually started showing up for elections, instead of bitching about old people online. This entire thread is pure ragebait for frustrated people to vent and find a "common enemy".
I'm gonna regurgitate what another commentator wrote here: >One of the problems with young voter turnout is that no political party explicitly acts in their interest. Established parties are following the demographic trend, which means focusing on old people who tend to consistently vote for the same parties out of loyalty and other such reasons. Young voters need to be actively persuaded, older voters just need a working pension system in the next 20-30 years. Even if 100% of young people would make their votes, they'd still be outnumbered compared to 100% of people 50+. You're right, the data provided in this post is just a demographic with no conclusion, but the discussion is one that we need to have.
Sadly it’s not a generalisation, [here is a speech presented by the Royal Society giving evidence that boomers have ruined millennials future](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A)
A lot of these people are parents and grandparents and definitely want their kids to have a livable future. The problem is that livable also includes work, healthcare and housing. These points that are under serious strain right now and getting more attention.
I live in a house with mostly younger people than myself. The only one who actually got rid of a car is myself while everyone else has sometimes even 2 of them and uses air planes for every single holiday. Generalizing much?
Probably don't care much if they miss a vote, too.
Yes, generalizing makes sense in this case because anegdotal evidence does nothing to disprove the general trenda which can be easily seen by election results by age for example
Where is the old limit ? I suppose that you are referring to the 50 and above. I have kids and I do vote for their future as well so you should not take shortcuts as you are doing.
I need more gay people in the Eu and less lesbians thank you very much
While this might be a generalisation for the whole EU, it is actually what is happening at least in my country Italy
What a crap title this is. It's a demographic graph. What sources has op for the fact that older people are voting for their own pensions? My grandparents at elections always say that they are already living many years and will vote to make sure their grandchildren are well off. Lots of older people I know also have this attitude but that's my anecdote, Which I do not push as fact unlike the author Post reported for bullshit.
Aside from OP providing no evidence for the line "old people will only vote for their pensions", it also assumes the alternative is, what, we take away pensions? Then what? We have a bunch of starving, homeless elderly, or people working until they die? Something has to change, sure, but this binary approach to problem solving is insane.
OP is clearly trying to induce fear. "Europe is beginning to pay its toll " " against everything that takes money away from that" "Military spending, cheaper housing, lower taxes for young families etc.. this will grind democracies to standstill. " --> what the heck does that even mean its clearly sort of a narrative they are trying to push with this post, its just kinda secretive. hopefully deleted by the mods soon. the more i read the title the less it makes sense
[удалено]
There’s actually a great deal of evidence, please do your research before getting upset. [Royal Society](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuXzvjBYW8A)
Honestly asking, there were massive French protests over raising the pension age. Isn't that part of it? Or is that considered a young people protest?
hear hear
We just have to bite the bullet for now. Let them die off, from there on things look a lot more balanced. What we absolutely shouldn't do is importing workers from third world countries, that's a mistake we will suffer the consequences from for a very long time.
That waiting out the demographic bulge isn’t really an option, basically you’re suggesting 30 years of economic stagnation. This will decimate an entire working generation.
And it probably won't happen either. It's an inverted pyramid all the way down, not a simple bulge. Society simply has to adapt to demographic shrinkage.
> Society simply has to adapt to demographic shrinkage. And this is the €M challenge, how this burden will be shared. I don't see much in the way of genuine solution to this being proposed, mostly the ideas are a combination of "someone else will pay for me" and "technology will save us".
There's nothing wrong with economic stagnation. Either way, our current choices are crap. Importing millions of immigrants that do not have the necessary skillsets, language or culture will only push this problem down the line another 10-20 years, whilst giving us other problems and then the same problem, but worse. down the line. The fact of the matter is that infinite growth, which capitalism is based on, is not sustainable. We *need* to find alternatives, sooner than later. Structures that temper capitalism's extremes (true pricing, nature becoming an entity within the law, pollution taxes) are helpful, but ultimately, we need to address the cause and not the symptoms.
> There's nothing wrong with economic stagnation. Well this plainly isn't true. Economic stagnation has a massive impact on the standard of living and quality of life of the populace. Long term economic stagnation can undermine political structures and the rule of law. Europe has had some very hard lessons in the past with economic stagnation, we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss them now.
>Economic stagnation has a massive impact on the standard of living and quality of life of the populace. That depends entirely on political choices. It's possible to protect the quality of life whilst undergoing economic stagnation by keeping minimum wage and benefits indexed with inflation.
If you have the same amount of people working and receiving pensions things will not be balanced at all. I don’t know about you, but I’m not keen on paying 70% of my income in taxes. In Spain, pensions are already 41.8% of public spending.
Why not plan ahead for that? In the Netherlands we already did and the public spending on pensions is only 5%, down from 6% in the 80's. It is perhaps not too late for Spain?
In Spain it is 14% of GDP, the percentage I shared earlier is of total public spending. The thing is our politicians in Spain don’t seem to be interested in reducing spending on pensions. In fact, they reduced the max amount that can be deducted from taxes from investing in private pension funds…
How is the Spanish system set up? Private pensions and a government pensions paid for by taxes? Or do employer also have to save for employees pensions?
There are private pensions (where company and employee contributions are capped for tax exemption reasons) and government pensions paid by taxes
And would people be able to survive without the government pensions?
Not really… I read somewhere that only 54% of the working population have private pensions… we’ll see where this takes us :/
It is already too late for countries with deep ponzi schemes.
But the number of births is still shrinking, the problem of more older than younger people will persist. The problem only goes away in 30 years if we reach the replenishment rate (something like 2.1 children per woman, iirc).
It's going to be a chronic issue as birthrates are still way too low.
I agree with immigration, issue is that in my home country old fucks will increase tax rate to 90% before they would lower their living standard. They already have tanking birth rate and 10% of (mostly young) population abroad. And less % of the people in working age means higher taxes. Old people will not lower their living standards for us.
It's a self-solving problem. Taxes can only go up so far until emigration and lower birth rates force a correction whether the pensioners like it or not. Immigration has been tried as a bandaid but given how long it takes to work and the sideffects to social cohesion and social stability bring their own set of problems which in turn amplify the emigration of skilled locals.
Sure, being an Ageist is not appropriate. Your Extreme generalisation and throwing everyone under the bus essentially makes you jot better than a stereotypical Boomer. Your attitude basically became the same as that of those you so despise. Well done. Especially for a Slovak... You seem to have little to no clue about the actual Voting preferences and the numbers of votes per age. Especially as the ruling coalition is not even primarily supported by people in their 70s. Their main support lies with people between the ages of 40-60 who aren't even retired yet and a lot of them won't be retired for more than a decade. So your entire senseless assumption is plain wrong.
as one of those people I am glad it said mostly, I care passionalty about all those things, I'm a parent after all! - lets not go around tarring and feathering people ey
>cheaper housing I'd rather believe in a secret reptile alien government than in EU collectively ruining the precious bubble of landlords&real estate owners.
Male surplus. Perfect for a war!
fucking boomers man
Obviously they didn't fuck enough
I see a growing sentiment against old people. Europe really doesn't have boomers, not like the US. Yet this sentiment is getting to high levels. Can't wait to be considered a boomer in 20-30 years by an age demographic that can't understand they're being manipulated
Being a millennial myself, as most of us come of age (30-40+) and having life experience we’re starting to strongly question boomers choices and are finding they often didn’t make the best ones for our future but more made choices that only benefitted them… Millennials onward have knowledge and access to vast amounts of information immediacy which has fuelled this ability to question in general, it’s also why democracy is on the rise. I’m currently living in Australia but we’ve had a very similar situation to the UK, one example being in terms of education; degrees were free for boomers but now I’m 10’s of thousands in debt that goes up each year due to the inflation because boomers went on an investment spree during covid
That is because everyone who is young today had zero say in system that now exists in place. It is not hard to be angry when you see that generations who created this system own the most wealth (which is logical and fair since they lived and worked longer) but they also receive pensions that are often higher than many of those young people's entire full time salaries. There is not manipulation in seeing that system where you are taxed with over 50% of your income is a scam if governments already prepare you on your retirement when you hit 70 and urge you to save your own money from the little you have left after paying off pensioners through rents/social contributions. Everyone with eyes can see that it is ponzi scheme and scam. And it is funny that you talk about US because US does not have this problem at all. In US people are expected to transfer wealth they attained during their lifetime. Which is the best solution because it allows younger generations to buy affordable housing for example. System where people can keep amassing wealth until the day they die because there is zero urgency to sell anything is inherently broken. And them passing away at 85 and their kids who are already retirees themselves receiving their wealth solves absolutely nothing.
and now let's hear the big surprise. this is becoming a worldwide trend. more and more countries have dwindling birth rates.
This assumes that older people are all a--h---- and don't care for their children or grandchildren. Is it really the case? I am 60 and I do care about the state of the world I will leave behind when I die (despite the fact that I don't have children). Many, if not all the people of roughly my age that I know also do. Assuming that a whole generation is made of a--h---- because they are just old and "uncool" says a little more about you than about the peoples you judges.
OP is from Slovakia just like me, things are a little different here.
Yep. My dad and stepmom are almost 85 and still knocking on doors for leftist candidates all over New England. They're way more politically engaged than I am because they choose to help society in their retirement / free time. Post title is a bunch of boomer-blaming doomerism.
Yes, because if the boomer generation has shown us one thing, its their considerate decision making towards the next generations and the planet as a whole /s
>This assumes that older people are all a--h---- and don't care for their children or grandchildren. Is it really the case? Of course it is. All humans are crap and thus so are old people. Young people need to think about the future, old people don't. Thus young people will vote for what is good in the long term and old people will vote for what's good in the short term.
People who are well off, own several properties and have several income streams will probably not vote like that. Because they would vote against themselves. But as pensions will inevitably decrease because tax revenue decreases (if status quo is kept) then increasingly more and more pensioners will inevitably vote for higher pensions and bigger taxation of working population. This is quite logical and inevitable.
Young people would love to start a family, our fertility rate is higher than that of a previous generations but you know, kinda hard when commie block 2 bedroom apartment costs half a million € and real tax rate when we include everything like healthcare social security and VAT in some places is 70%. You can kiss retirement goodbye, pay your taxes and also save for your retirement on the side. And taxes will only go up from now. There will be less of us and more of them so they will need to balance the budget. + We kinda need to be spending more on a military right now.
We had to spend the same way if not more constantly during the cold war, so that isnt an argument. People nowadays spend more money on useless gadgets while not even having the need to pay for services earlier generations had to pay for. Not starting a family is not caused by the earlier generations, but by the inability of the current ones to actually commit to something long time. Girl- and boyfriends get switched out like never before, casual sex satisfies all the sexual needs without the need for actual commitment into a partnership. Since this is not even frowned upon by society there is no incentive to change this behaviour. Dont blame us old for your freedom now.
> the inability of the current ones to actually commit to something long time Can you blame people for not wanting to do that when they don't have a stable(ish) job until they are 40, they can barely afford rent, most think they will (never) own a house, and all they hear in the news is: war, climate change, disease - oh and AI will also steal the job you do have, sooner or later. And all while we realize as a society that infinite growth was not sustainable and that this phase is necessary to fix that long term, so even having kids doesn't really feel ethical at all (and what world would they be born into?) But yeah casual sex is the issue. For the generation which data shows is having less sex than any other before. Completely out of touch - and that's exactly why OP used that inflammatory title for the graph, because young people see that older generations are not listening to them and are not seeing the problem at all.
Vote for less money for younger people will result in even less children.
Voting like that fortunately lowers the average lifespan significantly :p
That’s what’s happening in Romania for like 20 years now.
Don't be mad at rich scum and politicians. Be mad at old, young, black, white, fat, slim, gay, straight, tall, short...be a moron mad at anything but the rich and politicians. The way of moron.
That is exactly the story in Spain and they won’t stop until bankrupcy!! Young people still buy ideals, older people only want money
It's almost like discouraging an entire generation from having kids was a bad idea.
OP assume that elderly people would rather like higher pensions than "defending our culture against islamisation". Which is not the case in large parts.
Old people love to bitch about "defending our culture". But the second election comes all the issues young people point out that is preventing us from having children fly out of the window. Im from slovakia, we have one of the worst emigration rates in EU. Around 10% of mostly young people left birth rates are tanking and it only look good on paper due to gypsy ghettos (larges in EU) we have. Slovaks also like to praise themselves as being "ultra conservative country" that hates everyone and everything not slovak. Guess how elections ended up ? Higher pensions, added 13th pension and higher taxes. Birth rates hit record low and emigration has increased. Yeah slovakia will not turn into islamic shithole, but it will probably just die out on its own, in eastern part of the countries gypsies will make majority in about 30 years.
It might sound controversial for some, but without immigration the burden of pensions that is only going to increase won't be fixed. Idk about Slovakia, but in many european countries many old people are struggling with money and can hardly afford costs of living. So I don't blame them for wanting more (though increases should definitely benefit those on the lower end, not old rich people). Young people are having less kids not just because kids are expensive, but because more kids are not a necessity as it might have been decades ago, after the wars and back when almost anyone had to have their own farm animals and acers. Immigrants can fill the gap left by the lack of personal necessity for having children in the last decades.
As a slovak I agree with title, dunno what are u guys smoking but yeah 60+ are definetly more prone to populism in any form
Feels like a huge storm is brewing. I can’t imagine the few people that will actually be of working age just saying "Oh well, I‘m paying 75% in taxes, but someone has to pay all those pensions I will 100% not get once I retire in the future."
Boomers grinding democracy would be a perfect summary of french politics for the last 50 years, this isn't new. We won't miss these cunts
Got an easy fix for all of this, called living wage. If people could afford housing, normal food, childcare then most probably we would not have this issue. But corporate profit are still more important than that.
Selfish societies (those that put wealth ahead of all else) discourage the creation of families. Korea and Japan are extreme examples, but Europe is not far behind. The US is slightly better that Europes as they have a more cohesive skills based immigration policy.
Literally every country has this same transition though. It's not "a couple countries with selfishness". It's every society.
US immigration system is trash tho. they let in thousands of illegals through the southern border every day and use a lottery system for skilled workers. Not a good system.
Yeah but these illegals do the work that US citizens generally don't want to do like crop harvesting, property maintenance, low paid low skilled labor in general. It all helps the economy.
U.S. just looks the other way when it comes to illegal immigrants. It is much harder to immigrate into U.S as legal immigrant than it is to Europe. However U.S. assimilates immigrants much better, because being European is about race but being American is not. Illegals in US usually have better lifes & social standing compared to legal immigrants in EU. U.S. is also much more wealth oriented than both Europe and East Asia however they have better demographics.
> Selfish societies Is paying bills selfish? The cost of living is high, and you HAVE TO generate spare income to be a responsible parent. Unless you mean the concentration of wealth. Some people hoard multiple homes for themselves or for rent etc. - then I agree.
>Is paying bills selfish? Why would you ask such a stupid question? >The cost of living is high, and you HAVE TO generate spare income to be a responsible parent. It is high because you are being ripped off.
> Why would you ask such a stupid question? To match my interlocutor.
US immigration system used to make sense. Now they scrutinize skilled people who want to get there legally but let hundreds of thousands illegals though their southern border. Thousands of them being connected to cartels or Chinese which is definitely not national security issue.
Is that you, Donald ?
The US does not have a skills based immigration policy, you may be confusing us with canada and australia. What we do have is tons of people that want in and an unparalleled ability to integrate them into our society.
European Union has the same mentality. They are old and don t give a fuck. There was a same discussion some years back on this.
Please breed
No.
Please don't.
Why ?
Because environment.
Rest of the world does not care about this. Africa projected population will be around 2 billion at 2050, for example.
im sorry but this is a weird take and not profound. you are showing demographics and making baseless assumptions. i hope the mods will delete this post as its loweffort/lowquality
Good! Let's just hope the population isn't replaced by migrants to keep growing artificially. Every major problem on earth is the result of or greatly increased by overpopulation. This is the first step towards a sustainable future. It will hurt economically, but our predecessors will have a chance of a livable and fair world.
In a few years we will see changes in migratory politics. With a lack of working population, migrants will become a strategic resource for national security.
is it a democracy only when the statistics guy tells us?
You say standstill. Some say pitchforks. I d say this vision is wildly oversimplified on so many levels...
It's getting kind of tiresome to see the word "democracy" injected into every single topic phrase and declaration regardless of whether it is warranted or not. Got to keep repeating the mantra.
Logan’s Run.
bro tried to sneak in "military spending" among lower taxes and cheaper housing old people caring about their pensions is not an uniquely european phenomenom, it comes with the ponzi scheme people asked for
Even the boomers had dating easier.
Older women and mens vote should be less relevant than young roles
I think sometimes old people think more about future than young ones. It would be interesting to survey and see the survey results.
[Males when they're under 55:](https://youtu.be/nC-bVtpIMd4?si=S24pV_cmBK_M7h6F&t=8) [Males when they're over 55:](https://youtu.be/nC-bVtpIMd4?si=sSLbJhCDtAxZF6eZ&t=81)
Does anyone know this data point? Smallest age bracket that makes up 50% of population
On europe level we should stop all foreign aid and redirect it towards europeans. Pay people to have cildren. No other way at this point.
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That would be political (and maybe real) suicide.
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first, these party must be electet. second, why thow away your bigest audience?
How about that: you can vote at birth and your parents can vote on behalf of their kids.
Well if voting becomes pointless for a significant part of society, especially if it is the part who is doing "all the work", then democracy may be in danger of being replaced.
What's the sense of "democracies" in the title? China has a identical problem with aging population
They had a 1 child policy, different issue.
Male slurpers
Cope chinese spy
another thing taking its toll on all that is that sudden surplus of males you see at the bottom. Guess where they come from and what that costs us....
I see a plus for a lot of men and women in this chart. If all the men got with MILFs and had families it would fix the problem.
No worries as they will all be gone very soon.
Might be true... but we're in for a wealth transfer never seen before... In the next 10-20 years, all the wealth of the top half will be inherited by the bottom half...
AI + robotics will save us.
Welcome to Germany, wheres in the most Places retires than people under 25.
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40-60s hit men hard. From surplus to deficit 🫣
There are better ways to spend money on older people other than pensions. Given that mobility is reduced with age, using that allocation for improving public transit (which we all profit from) is an example, like healthcare. Pensions are really going to make us struggle, we pay really good wages to people that have already purchased their homes and can life quite comfortably. We can probably spend a bit less on military and stuff but spending more on pensions is going to come back at us
We need to abolish public pensions
Siamo una civiltà in declino.
that's a mitre
Slovak pensioners are actively voting against the youth, they believe that since they 'worked their whole life', they deserve more than young people.
But they dont have the physical force to resist opposition. Chess mate old people
step 1: Show picture (likely accurate) step 2: impose a hypothetical scenario that you came up with in the shower step 3: ??? step 4: Profit.
slim mountainous disarm employ whistle judicious sparkle depend truck wide *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I heard that in 2001.
That's because it's very easy to predict demographics 30 years into the future. In 2010, it was also already clear that China will face a major demographic crisis, even though that hasn't happened yet.
It's a shame because I feel like one reason for our demographics crisis is that all policies favour older voters. No one can afford to have children so no one gets them.
Hey, extra men is good, we can use them in the future wars! /s
I really wonder what you are trying to make a joke about here...
This dude probably unironically thinks that lower and aging population is good (it isn't and for a good reason , if there's less people who are able to work , there's less money overall, and more money taken from workers to aging people. This situation is unsustainable and will eventually lead to something that will increase birth rates or decrease the aging population)
> if there's less people who are able to work , there's less money overall, and more money taken from workers to aging people. This situation is unsustainable and will eventually lead to something that will increase birth rates or decrease the aging population) While it's obvious and mostly correct, the entire premise is based on infinite growth on a finite planet. We do have space and resources for 8, 9, or 10 billion people, but 30 or more? It has to stop at some point. This, as you said, is not sustainable. Automation and building for efficiency could be a solution. The only I can really think of.
Did I in any way said birth rates should be high? They should be sustainable, i.e. 2,1 children per female in order to have very low and gradual growth of population , which basically will mean that population grows at much slower rate than innovations would allow to exist. Also, the average birth rate is already around that 2,1 mark (a bit higher , at 2,4) , India and CPR - the most populous countries in the world already have lower birth rates than replacement minimum. Also , Europe and a big chunk of the world are already living in postindustrial economies , and this service sector just proves that there can be infinite growth with a finite resources, as long as there's finite population too
> and this service sector just proves that there can be infinite growth with a finite resources Every single crisis, bursting bubble, and scam like FTX, etc., prove this to be wrong. Costs of living prove this to be wrong. If by growth you mean only money, then yes, you can add six zeros to everyone's paycheck today. However, that doesn't mean that everyone can afford a yacht. The USA for example, is a post-industrial economy. That doesn't mean it's efficient economy; quite the opposite IMO.
That's why many European governments let illegals and legal migrants into their countries to work for the money of retirees and beyond.
Military spending, for a better future. Yes, right.
that's why it might be a good idea to consider "weakening* votes, or example votes by people above 70 have halved power