The pressing demographic decline
Greece is aging. It is a realization that keeps being mentioned more and more urgently and imperatively. Recently, ratings agency Moody’s predicted a demographic “crash” for the country in 2035, by measuring the elderly dependency ratio. According to this index, the proportion of people aged 65 and over to the working-age population (15-64) is expected to increase to 40% over the next decade, from 32% in 2023. This means that “a declining number of employees will support an expanding pool of retirees,” with all that this entails for fiscal costs, healthcare needs, and reduced tax revenues, as income shifts from employment to retirement.
In short, seniors cost money. Of course, other indicators, social and emotional, highlight the role of the 65+ in the family, but also their contribution to positions of responsibility, in cities and in the countryside, in politics, in business, in the public sector etc.
The pensions of grandparents were deified during Greece’s debt crisis, as the economic cushion that somehow supported the younger generation in their difficult everyday life. In other words, when hundreds of thousands of gifted young people were leaving the country in search of work and better living conditions (the much-discussed brain drain), their parents and grandparents were struggling, for their part, to maintain their pace: their personal pace and, by extension, that of the country.
The distribution of tax burdens is a complex, slow-burning process, which does not always obey the rules of aging. The speed of our times and the consequent cynicism do not leave much room for second thoughts – the first ones always prevail. The headlines, the hasty social media posts, unedited and intense, form impressions and images: Old age is a burden – demographically and economically.
The self-evident – that the primary goal of the state is to support and increase births and people of reproductive age – does not need any arguments. Only actions. But since aging will appear increasingly around us, it should not be demonized. It should be included and utilized in any plans to tackle the demographic decline. The elderly may not have much time, but they should have space.
