4 ms·

So shrinking absolutely leads to austerity measures? I find that hard to believe.

• s1artibartfast 4y ago
  Nothing is absolute or predetermined, and in fact it is incredibly complicated and uncertain. That said, with all things being equal I would expect austerity simply because you have a smaller and smaller percent of the population working. This means fewer working people to provide services and build things per capita and there is no way around that. Even if you managed to fix income inequality, you still have fewer people to fix your toilet. You also have more elderly that cannot do things for themselves and need assistance so the labor market is hit from both directions