An aging population can bring economic, political and social advantages as well as disadvantages. (15)
An aging population results in a greater need for
residential homes, to accommodate for the increasing number of elderly people who
are living longer due to an increase in world life expectancy of 74 years by
2050. The building of more residential care homes create jobs for builders and
other labourers. This is an economic advantage as it allows builders, plumbers
and electricians to earn money to provide for their families and put back into
the economy.
Elderly grandparents often provide free child care for their
children this allows them to work more hours and build careers. They will be
reassured of their children’s wellbeing because they trust their parents to
look after them properly. Professional childcare can be very expensive,
therefore having the grandparents there to care for their children saves them a
lot of money. Grandparents often enjoy looking after their grandchildren and
have a lot of experience and wisdom to pass onto them. This is therefore a
social advantage of an aging population.
Due to the aging population, in the UK, 1.9% of the
population is aged 85 years old or older. This makes the elderly a big target
audience for political parties. Having the elderly on board with their
campaigns could dramatically boast their chances of being elected. This is
known as the ‘Grey vote’, stereotypically older people are more likely to vote
in the general election than the youth of the country. Therefore being able to
focus on getting the older generations votes, as they are a big proportion of
the population, is a political advantage of an aging population.
However there are many disadvantages to a country having an
aging population. The general increase of the world’s average life expectancy
means that people will require more of the world resources. For example an
aging population can put extra strain on a country’s healthcare system, as
generally the older a person gets the more their health deteriorates which will
increase their use of the healthcare system. This put healthcare resources such
as doctors, nurses, medicine and hospital beds under strain which results in
the government having to spend more money to try to accommodate the aging
population’s needs. This is therefore an economic disadvantage of an aging
population.
In
the UK, due to a significant rise in the population aged 65 and over which in 2014 was at 11.1 million (17.4% of the population). In order to cope with this surge of older people the
government have increased the retirement age, this requires people to work for
longer. This is a social disadvantage as some people have aspirations to take
their savings and travel the world for example. The government raising the
retirement age restricts people’s ability to live their lives the way they
planned to.
In
order to fund the extra services we need to manage an aging population, the
government have had to increase taxes. To be able to house this aging
population more residential care homes and adapted bungalows have had to be
built. Also more doctors and other medical staff have to be employed to be able
to continue offering free health service to the elderly population, who need it
most. This angers working people, who make up a large amount of the votes in
the general election. This is a disadvantage for political parties as they
could be at risk of losing the election due to their decision to raise taxes,
even though realistically this has to be done to cope with the strain an aging
population puts on our resources.
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