THE LAST WORD
The 'problem' with ageing
Very few people look forward to getting old, and the reasons are so obvious that there is little point in listing them here. Entire societies can age, too, and ours is doing just that every day that passes. The combination of an increasingly longer life expectancy and a lower birth rate puts society in a difficult position. With euthanasia or enforced reproduction out of the question, as they naturally are in a society like ours, then the only real solution left is to encourage immigration. Yet, in general, people are not so keen on foreigners and so the numbers of dependent elderly grows, with increasingly fewer young people to support them, while fertile, able-bodied migrants are discouraged from seeking their fortune among us.
It paints a pretty grim scenario.
And yet, as with so many things in life, it all depends on how you look at it. One of the things that struck me when I read the report we have this month on the future demographics of Catalonia – which addresses all the above issues in a series of illustrated articles between page 20 and 27 – is that we should see increased life expectancy as one of the great achievements of our times (see interview on page 24). When you think about it, of course it is just that. Rather than seeing the ever-greater numbers of older people in society as a burden or a problem to be solved, we should be celebrating the fact that we have improved diet, living standards, medicine, technology, security – all of the elements determining when we might die – to such an extent that most people now have the potential to live a long, safe and fulfilled life. Isn't that the whole point of progress in the first place?
New challenges
Which is not to say that such fundamental changes in society do not present new challenges. There are always challenges to overcome and, no matter how much progress we might make, there always will be. What is useful about the sort of statistics and forecasts to be found in our report this month is not that it gives us a good reason to throw in the towel, but that it gives us a chance to prepare properly for the future. Whether it is as inspiration for public policy, for technological innovation, for new businesses, for education reform – you name it – this sort of information helps give society a heads-up, as it were, so that we don't have to walk blindfold into an uncertain future in which the hard work done so far (and done by the older generations, don't forget) will mean little.
