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Adults over 65 will outnumber children by 2029
- speak_plainly 2mo agoWe're on the path to putting Augustine's City of God theory of population to the test.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- tonyedgecombe 2mo ago>As the ratio of working-age adults (18–64) to older adults falls from about 3.4 today toward roughly 2.4 by 2060, the arithmetic that supports those programs tightens, all else equal. On this reading, the chart is an argument for some combination of higher productivity, longer working lives, higher fertility, or higher immigration to widen the working-age base. Or spend less.
- throw-the-towel 2mo agoNot gonna happen.
- boczez 2mo agoGOOD. We’ve done well to keep everyone alive. All that’s left is to implement sensible economic policies that allow normal folk to start families
- bearjaws 2mo agoBut the people disinterested in starting families (boomers, genx) are going to be the majority of the voting base? We've already seen 20 years of policy driven by people who don't care about families being started.
- boczez 2mo agoA great point, but I don’t think those policies should go after the (relatively tiny) wealth that boomers et al currently hold. As another commenter alluded to, the money is going to have to come from much bigger fish; there’s literally nowhere else to get it from!
- philipov 2mo agoParents and Grandparents might not be interested in starting families, but they're interested in their (grand)children starting families. Ideally, that's where their wealth would go, except that it's being completely obliterated by retirement and end-of-life care.
- midtake 2mo agoIf that were true, US policy and trends would reflect that. Instead, as groups, we are seeing earning potential decreased in the young and wealth increase in the old. This is a dysgenic shift. Coupled with AI, which when viewed as a force against labor is a product that reduces the earning potential of the young cohort as a group, this is not sustainable. The lack of stability and opportunity for young people is the sort of stuff that leads to revolution.
- co_ent 2mo ago>(relatively tiny) wealth that boomers et al currently hold Their wealth is not liquid, but it's not relatively tiny. >$93 trillion in assets[1] >Total wealth: $167.26 trillion[2] [1]https://investor.visa.com/news/news-details/2026/Visa-Research-The-Great-Wealth-Transfer-Is-Already-Reshaping-How-Americans-Spend/default.aspx https://investor.visa.com/news/news-details/2026/Visa-Resear... [2]https://smartasset.com/financial-advisor/wealth-by-generation https://smartasset.com/financial-advisor/wealth-by-generatio...
- NegativeLatency 2mo ago> the arithmetic that supports those programs tightens, all else equal We can tax the rich, we're post scarcity, time to take a look at the rest of the world an come up with a better social safety net.
- arbll 2mo agoI agree that the ultra-rich living on permanent fake debt backed by their stocks / real estate need to contribute more, but I'm tired of seeing people throw "we can tax the rich" as a panacea. Productivity is growing much more slowly than the retiree-to-worker ratio. Workers are producing slightly more every year, but there are a lot more retirees to take care of every year. If this does not change, we will eventually see a collapse of social safety nets. Policy can only accelerate or delay that collapse.
- throw-the-towel 2mo agoPray tell, what do you mean by "the rest of the world"? Surely it's not Western Europe, which is already being strangled by the cost of the welfare state?
- newfriend 2mo agoWhy would I want to turn the country at the forefront of technology and innovation into a stagnating socialist welfare state like the countries you are holding up as role models?
- throwway120385 2mo agoSome day you might need the welfare. Not everyone is infinitely healthy for their entire lives.
- aliasxneo 2mo agoWe should probably spend some time making sure that _existing_ taxes are being used efficiently before we start funneling in even more.
- missedthecue 2mo ago
- kps 2mo agoIn the US, despite the .fr domain.
- polycancel 2mo agoUS's birth rate are actually way higher than Europe and China, not as high as Africa, but still better than most other areas in the world.
- missedthecue 2mo agoIt's already true in France. Over 65s are 22.5% of the population and under 18s are 17%. And the difference is rapidly widening.
- peterfirefly 2mo agoIt'll be fine, Nick will pay for it.
- pmontra 2mo agoSo a lot of problems will be solved by 2049 (overpopulation) and probably many others will arise (we never had worldwide decreasing demographics.)
- dotancohen 2mo agoOverpopulation is not solved. Many African and Middle Eastern cultures continue to have half a dozen children per wife.
- boczez 2mo agoI don’t get this, doesn’t proof of an aging global population imply that overpopulation is solving itself? Also is it really that big of an issue? I’ve only heard bill gates talking about it, not sure what it’s got to do with that geezer tbh
- CodingJeebus 2mo ago> is it really that big of an issue? Yes, because the aging population increases healthcare spending to support them while the working age population shrinks, eroding the tax base. This is currently happening in Japan right now.
- matheusmoreira 2mo ago> Also is it really that big of an issue? It's a titanic issue. Old people are expensive. They tax the young to pay for themselves. Now the system is running out of young to tax. And that's the situation in rich and prosperous nations. I live in a developing country that has managed to be relatively poor and have a declining birth rate. It's so absurdly pathological it's not even funny. Symptoms include, for example, increased retirement ages. We will work well into our 70+ years of age, and we will be happy. Newer generations are already coping, they've already internalized the fact they will never actually retire. This is the stuff revolutions are made out of.
- chermi 2mo agoIt depends on whether we take care of them at the cost we currently are in the west.
- cwoolfe 2mo agoThis has to slow stock market growth, right? Less young people buying, more older people selling.
- Maxion 2mo agoMost stock market trades aren't made by people, but by institutional money. That ain't going nowhere.
- wbl 2mo agoThe institutions exist for people to do things like retire.
- Maxion 2mo agoUndoubtedly they will continue to exist once the people they serve seize to exist.
- throw-the-towel 2mo agoHa, this has some serious There Will Come Soft Rains energy.
- wbl 2mo agoIt's not about existence it's about what drives the flows. People are born, work and save, and retire. Part of the savings enters as institutional money, and is consumed in retirement.
- missedthecue 2mo agoYes. A massive implosion in aggregate consumer demand due to shrinking population will hit real estate, stocks, tax revenue, and therefore the ability to meet debt repayment obligations. Frustratingly, (and counterintuitively), it won't help housing prices, because shrinking populations retreat to city centers. Spain, Italy, Japan, and Korea are full of $5,000 houses. Meanwhile, Madrid, Rome, Tokyo, and Seoul are more expensive than they've ever been.
- slaw 2mo agoMedian age in Africa is 19.5 years. Africa doubled it's population in the last 28 years.
- matchbok3 2mo agoOur expanding economies and improving quality of life depend on young people and a growing population. So it brings up an interesting question. In 20 years, will countries start to compete for young people? Tax breaks, benefits, etc. Will some countries thrive while others die off completely? The proportion of young people will be a huge issue regarding military strength, innovation, etc. Could get very ugly.
- lnsru 2mo agoThat’s very idealistic opinion. The reality is that for example German government does everything for retirees and their votes. Young people as a minority are successfully ignored.
- missedthecue 2mo agoYes, but the inverse implication of countries heavily competing is that young people will be severely restricted from leaving as well. An incredibly underrated future possibility is that it becomes much harder to get a passport.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2mo agoSounds like the who age verification debate will just solve itself. Just wait until there aren't any more children and then we don't need to worry about protecting them.
- throw-the-towel 2mo agoYou jest, but I'd think it really is the opposite. Hard to care too much for a child if you've got five spare ones.
- eigencoder 2mo agoDo you have children? Because I've never heard a parent think that way
- xboxnolifes 2mo agoI think it's a little brash, but I do think that if we could accurately measure "care" that people with 1 child care statistically slightly more for them than those with 5 might care about any individual one. Not that they don't care, but that the one with 1 would worry more. Like how families with 1 daughter and multiple boys might dot on the only daughter a bit more.
- preg_match 2mo agoI mean historically this is exactly how it worked. When infant mortality was 25-50%, people often had 10 children or so. Maybe 5 would make it to be adults, but people back then didn't view death like we view it now. Sure, they mourned, but losing a child was not a "stop the world" event, because you could expect to lose many. So, it couldn't be. That was a little over 100 years go. So, a long time, but not that long.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- cyberax 2mo agoKeep building these bike lanes and 15-minute neighborhoods. So that people don't even think about having children. Make sure people have no personal space and no personal time. That's how we reduce the Earth's population!
- btmiller 2mo agoWhat an odd thing to say. Have you traveled internationally much?
- cyberax 2mo agoI speak 5 languages, lived in several countries, and got my first car at the age of 30.
- BigTTYGothGF 2mo ago15-minute neighborhoods with bike lanes are exactly the kinds of places good for raising kids in.
- cyberax 2mo agoNo, they're not. They are places where cities go to die. Walk in Tokyo and try to find children there.
- trgn 2mo agothere's a new urbanist community, walkable, bikelanes, etc.. in my part of the midwest and it's teeming with children.
- BigTTYGothGF 2mo ago> Walk in Tokyo and try to find children there There might a few more things going on there than just density, perhaps operating on a national level.
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- skapadia 2mo agoThis will have significant consequences for the military.
- colechristensen 2mo agoIn that they'll have to act like a competitive employer?
- arjie 2mo agoIt will be interesting to see how South Korea holds its borders 5 generations from now. That population will have shrunk substantially. Perhaps a robotic workforce and a drone military will finally deliver luxury capitalism to them. Or they will simply lose their control of their borders. Countries with larger populations will see these guys commit civilizational suicide with enough time to recover one can hope. We won’t be funding USAID when the majority of Americans are drawing from Medicare though.
- jandrewrogers 2mo agoAutonomous and semi-autonomous systems address that.
- subarctic 2mo agoIn the US, not the world
- arjie 2mo agoI think it’s time to bite the bullet and raise the retirement^W elder benefits eligibility age and peg it to life expectancy at birth minus 15 years or some structure like that. It’s fine that my generation will have to eat the loss - having paid for the past one but not benefiting as much from the coming ones. Some generation has to, and better us than them. As we get better at healthcare and life, we should expect to be productive and care for ourselves for longer. I hope that as I age I remain in favour of succeeding generations over my own self. Plant the tree whose shade we won’t see etc.
- subarctic 2mo agoWhat even is retirement age and what practical impact would changing it have on society? People can retire or keep working at whatever age they want as long as they can afford to
- rwmj 2mo agoRetirement age is usually tied to various benefits. In the UK it's the age at which you can collect the state pension (currently around £12K per year, if you worked for 30-35 years). Changing the retirement age therefore affects the state's finances, quite dramatically in fact: https://obr.uk/box/the-fiscal-impact-of-increases-in-the-state-pension-age/ https://obr.uk/box/the-fiscal-impact-of-increases-in-the-sta...
- swat535 2mo agoDenmark is already considering raising the retirement age to 70: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44088957 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44088957 This is the natural consequence of declining birth rates.. it's either that or immigration right now. Encouraging people to have more children requires drastic changes in society which is difficult to implement.
- telesilla 2mo agoIn some countries you can reach retirement age, get a pension and keep working. So you profit more. It's complicated as maybe you've paid to your pension since 18yrs of age and you should get some money back, but many pensions aren't based on those actual savings but on tax payers actively funding that pension. Is double dipping ok then?
- bsimpson 2mo agoIt's so frustrating that Social Security reform became the "are you a good progressive?" litmus test in the early 00s. We've had our wages tithed for our whole lives - money that would be actually worth something in retirement if invested - to go into a Ponzi scheme that will go bust before we're retirement age. You could see it coming decades away, and political infighting ensured nothing would be done about it until the discourse tired and started arguing about pronouns instead.
- throwway120385 2mo agoWe could actually hold our elected officials accountable for gutting Social Security instead. Then we wouldn't have to add "stock exchange expert" to our ever-growing list of job titles.
- throw-the-towel 2mo ago[flagged]
- mostlysimilar 2mo agoWhy only women?
- throw-the-towel 2mo agoCan't exactly help out with childbirth if you don't have an uterus.
- mostlysimilar 2mo agoLast I checked virgin birth remains in the realm of religion, not science.
- sph 2mo agoMale genetic material is easier to come by than working wombs, I guess.
- entangledqubit 2mo agoIt isn't just about bringing a bunch of cells to term. But if you want to oversimplify, why not government fund gestation vat technology? The main blocker for progressing on those right now appear to be self imposed.
- poly2it 2mo agoWhat a unique opinion! Why do you think it is controversial?
- Aboutplants 2mo agoWhy would we choose a world where we have to decide who to give healthcare for? Why can’t we take care of both?
- 2mo ago
- HaloZero 2mo agoIf anybody was curious, the states that already had this prior to 2020 are: Maine, Vermont, and Florida Since 2020: Delaware, Hawaii, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and West Virginia now also qualify. Montana is a bit of a surprise there... so is Oregon for me. Source: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/older-adults-outnumber-children.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/older-ad...
- eigencoder 2mo agoThis is exactly what I was wondering, thank you! They kept saying 11 states already have this, but I couldn't figure out which 11.
- dieselgate 2mo agoI'm from the west coast and oregon has always seemed to have large populations of retirees in the more rural areas. My grandparents considered moving there when I was young. Also seems that oregon has a large "self-selecting" population where folks move there from out-of-state
- HaloZero 2mo agoYeah, they keep stating how "% counties" also qualify but they're almost all rural sparsely populated counties. Must be a retiree thing or "I grew up here and not leaving" thing. Florida being on that list made so much sense lol.
- baxtr 2mo agoLet’s consider this logically: What kind of people will not wanting children likely select for? At least two kinds come to mind: 1) People who love children and are willing to have them regardless of the impact on their financial situation. 2) People living in societies where women (and likely some men) lack a say in whether or not to have children. The first kind could be very good. The second is definitely not something we should look forward to.
- pstuart 2mo agoIf things don't change, those in power in the US will succeed in making the second a reality. There is a "replacement" crisis but it's being addressed by pearl clutching and those advocating for forced birth. Having children is expensive all the way around. And women's reproductive rights have enabled them to (rightfully) make their own choices about motherhood. To state the obvious: children literally are the future of humanity and we need to address the issue accordingly. A lot of it would be via changing the economics of having a child, and the rest would be by making the world a "village to raise a child". This is all eminently doable. We just need to agree on what that looks like and how to best invest in it.
- toomuchtodo 2mo agoBased on all available evidence, there is no will to implement or change the necessary policies, nor is it likely there will there be in the next 5-10 years (affordable housing, better working conditions, universal healthcare, robust support systems for parents, etc), locking in the fertility trap trajectory. Even Scandinavian countries and France, with generous parental benefits, have not materially increased their fertility rates. At least in the US, protecting agency and autonomy that might be challenged is easily solved with the second amendment for defense, as well as long term and permanent birth control for those who would not like to have any children or more children. The potentially vulnerable reproductive age population shrinks perpetually year after year, continuously reducing potential attack surface. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48733976 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48733976 (citations)
- roysting 2mo ago
- blini-kot 2mo ago...in the US
- scoofy 2mo agoWestern society is limping forward with a "yes, but me first" mentality. We absolutely need an abundance agenda if we want people to have children. Reject the zero-sum investment thesis of NIMBY protectionism. Invest in density, efficiency, and antitrust. This is one of the most openly obvious self-owns in history. It's genuinely absurd. We are all in this together. Make financial security easy for young people and we'll actually get children.
- arcrevenant 2mo agoYou’re like we need an abundance Of stack and packs lol > We are all in this together. When’s the last time I heard that one
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 2mo agoAdults born before computers, the public internet and the later appearance of so-called "tech" companies on the internet, will outnumber those born after computers, the internet and so-called "tech" company intermediaries
- Razengan 2mo agoSo what? Improving healthcare and medicine should be one of the core goals of civilization, so eventually we should have healthcare good enough to enable "practical immortality": No "aging" and no deaths save in extreme cases or physical accidents/violence. In an ideal future, the majority of humans SHOULD be all over 100 years old! and hale and healthy as a 30 year old. The problem is not "how long most people have been alive", maybe the problem is our unwillingness to reassess social assumptions established >2000 years ago: That everyone has to "work", everyone has to "earn", everyone has to constantly "buy", and that everyone has to constantly pump out babies so they can also keep doing the same...
- theturtle 2mo ago[dead]
- tsoukase 2mo agoHumankind obviously will not die, it will adapt through various ways. Eg health services for elderly will be needed and inheritance will play an increased role as a single person will inherit multiple ancestors.