| |
Editorial
06/2005 |
|
Ageing populations, irresponsible politics
Demographic change is causing serious worries in Germany. Our nation is ageing, and rapidly so. This dynamic has profound consequences for pension schemes and the provision of health care. The challenges have too long been ignored. Even though experts have been debating the matter ever since the 1970ies, governmental policy has only recently begun to adapt. The consequences are painful. Wide sections of the population have discovered that they are less well protected from poverty over the long run than they had imagined.
Had politicians responded earlier to the obvious trends, the German situation would be more comfortable. On the one hand, entitlement programmes could have been designed better, preventing hardship and worries. On the other hand, birth rates might be higher, had the state made better provisions for child care or passed legislation balancing work life and family needs better. As politicians did not rise to the challenges, Germany is now in for a period of crisis. Institutional investors, so vital for economic success, already consider the low birth rate a reason for slow growth today and an indicator of stagnation in future.
Germany provides a lesson for other countries. Demographic change may take decades, but it is predictable. Any government that wants to serve its nation well must take such undeniable developments into account. Sadly, most governments do not. Even more depressingly, they are not even ignoring the relevant statistics at their own peril. Many ministers, after all, will no longer be in office when the brunt of their failure will be felt some time in the mid-term future.
Today, this is no longer true for Germany – nor for Japan or Italy, nations facing similar problems. But governments of many developing countries still display a carefree attitude. They should not be mistaken: ageing is a global trend that affects most of humankind today (interview with demographer Sergei Scherbov, p. 232). Birth rates are falling in Asia, in much of the Muslim World and in Latin America. In many countries, fertility is already below the reproduction level. This is most prominently the case in China and throughout the former Soviet Block. Longevity, on the other hand, is on the rise in most countries. And where that is not the case, as for instance in much of sub-Saharan Africa because of the high incidence of HIV/Aids, living conditions are deteriorating dramatically. For obvious reasons, long life spans are desirable.
Even the Chinese regime, while grappling with challenges ahead, has not yet come to grips with demographic change (Rina Goldenberg-Huang and Gang Huang, p. 236). So far, it mostly seems to be shying away from the issue – just as German politicians did in past decades. While the Chinese leaders should be doing more to establish social security systems, they are, however, correctly not giving up family planning all together. Indeed, planned parenthood is indispensable and nations such as France or Denmark are relying on well-considered use of contraceptives. A birth rate close to the reproduction level is the best way to stabilise a population and to cushion off the harsh effects of change.
Particularly in the case of poor countries, family planning should remain high on the development agenda. This is so because high birth rates are typical of poor countries and compound the problems of destitution and deprivation. Precisely because of high birth rates in poor countries, the world population is still growing. It is an ominous sign that it is doing so in those places where societies can least afford to feed yet more hungry mouths. All summed up, the world population is expected to expand by roughly another three billion people (or roughly 50 %) in the decades to come. That is hardly good news.
Planning parenthood prudently is a way of improving matters. Moreover, condoms have proven to be of dual use: they do not only serve to prevent unwanted pregnancies. They also pose barriers to the spread of HIV/Aids. There simply is no alternative to systematically using contraceptives – even if conservative forces oppose them, be they the Vatican or the US administration (Mirjam Hägele und Catherina Hinz, p. 240).
Demographic change, however, is not only an issue of family life and social safety nets. It affects societies as a whole. Town planning, for instance, may yet prove just as decisive for humankind’s ability to cope with demographic trends as family planning. The reason is that most rural areas of our planet are already over-populated. Agriculture should not be expected to provide much more employment than it already does. Most arable land, after all, is already under the plough. That means that the additional three billion people, by which humankind is yet to grow, will have to make a living in urban environments (Barney Cohen and Kimberly Vilar, p. 244). The century in which the world population is expected to peak will also prove to be the urban century.
Dr. Hans Dembowski
Editor in Chief of D+C Development and Cooperation/E+Z Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit
euz.editor@fsd.de
|
