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You either deal with mass immigration or address your population decline—there’s no way around it. Historically, Nordic countries haven’t had much experience wi

You either deal with mass immigration or address your population decline—there’s no way around it. Historically, Nordic countries haven’t had much experience with immigration, and Sweden’s poorly managed policies make that painfully clear. For immigration to succeed, you need a universal language like English, a thriving industry, and abundant opportunities to attract the cream of the crop. Essentially, you have to compete with countries like the US, Canada, and Australia—all of which offer better conditions for immigrants compared to majority of the places in Europe. Also, I don't know anyone that can get a job in the SV is excited to learn German and move there; let alone in the Nordics. While these nations draw in the best and brightest, the EU ends up handling the leftovers: refugees and others in desperate situations. Then they complain about how immigrants have ruined their economy. Like, hello—you took in the most disadvantaged en masse; what exactly did you expect?

HPsquared 2y ago
Can't they also just... Live with fewer people? Living standards increased after the Plague wiped out a huge chunk of the population. The only people who DON'T benefit are "asset owners" whose status and asset values (land prices) would decrease. Everyone else would enjoy cheaper housing, full employment and boosted social status to "workers".
- Cumpiler69 2y ago
  > Living standards increased after the Plague wiped out a huge chunk of the population. That's not the argument people want to hear.
- sofixa 2y ago
  > Live with fewer people? Living standards increased after the Plague wiped out a huge chunk of the population Having a catastrophic event wipe out large swathes of the population... and large swathes of the population being old (so requiring disproportionate amounts of effort and contributing little to economic and social efforts) is very different. If 60% of a country 's population is in retirement homes, who will take care for them? Who will work all the jobs required to maintain a standard of living for everyone and pay for those retirees?
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    There's no way a country would have anything like 60% in nursing homes. In rapidly ageing Japan and UK it's less than 1%.
    - sofixa 2y ago
      Rapidly aging, not already aged. For South Korea if current trends persist (so far they've only been getting worse), it's expected that 25% of the population would be 60 and older by 2050.
dagw 2y ago
Nordic countries haven’t had much experience with immigration That's not really true, at least not with regards to Sweden. In the 50s-70s there was a massive immigration wave from Finland. During the Pinochet years, Sweden took in a lot of political refugees from Chile. During the war in Yugoslavia there was another huge wave of immigration into Sweden. Sweden's immigration clusterfuck wasn't so much due to lack of experience, but more based on a very naive assumption that this immigration wave would play out more or less just like the previous ones.

HPsquared 2y ago

Can't they also just... Live with fewer people? Living standards increased after the Plague wiped out a huge chunk of the population. The only people who DON'T benefit are "asset owners" whose status and asset values (land prices) would decrease. Everyone else would enjoy cheaper housing, full employment and boosted social status to "workers".

Cumpiler69 2y ago
> Living standards increased after the Plague wiped out a huge chunk of the population. That's not the argument people want to hear.
sofixa 2y ago
> Live with fewer people? Living standards increased after the Plague wiped out a huge chunk of the population Having a catastrophic event wipe out large swathes of the population... and large swathes of the population being old (so requiring disproportionate amounts of effort and contributing little to economic and social efforts) is very different. If 60% of a country 's population is in retirement homes, who will take care for them? Who will work all the jobs required to maintain a standard of living for everyone and pay for those retirees?
- HPsquared 2y ago
  There's no way a country would have anything like 60% in nursing homes. In rapidly ageing Japan and UK it's less than 1%.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    Rapidly aging, not already aged. For South Korea if current trends persist (so far they've only been getting worse), it's expected that 25% of the population would be 60 and older by 2050.

dagw 2y ago

Nordic countries haven’t had much experience with immigration That's not really true, at least not with regards to Sweden. In the 50s-70s there was a massive immigration wave from Finland. During the Pinochet years, Sweden took in a lot of political refugees from Chile. During the war in Yugoslavia there was another huge wave of immigration into Sweden. Sweden's immigration clusterfuck wasn't so much due to lack of experience, but more based on a very naive assumption that this immigration wave would play out more or less just like the previous ones.