People have been trying to forecast future population levels for centuries, with relatively little success. The projections done in the 1970’s -80’s - 90’s were knocked flat by a sudden and rapid drop in total fertility rates in many countries. Japan has been leading the way on this for some time.
“In 2020, approximately 840.8 thousand live births were recorded in Japan, which constituted a decrease of around 210 thousand compared to 2011.” The fertility rate** in 2020 stood at 1.34 where a fertility rate of 2.1 is needed for a stable population.
Japan has lost it’s lead and now Taiwan (1.08) and South Korea (1.10) have nosed ahead.
The many country decline in fertility rate caught demographers on the wrong foot, it came in quicker, harder and has lasted longer than they thought it would. So demographers get stuff wrong, they are using past trends to project future ones which is difficult. They then produce projections and these are used by governments to do whatever it is that they do but which seems most generally to be to make bad situations worse.
The Boomer bulge is pushing it’s way through the age ranges, in 2020 their average age ranged from 60 to 76 years old, by 2030 all Boomers will be 65 or older. Most population projections are based on the idea that the increased life expectancy seen in earlier generations (life expectancy has risen, on average, by more than two years per decade since the 1960’s). Is this a good basis for projections? ….
So what about GenX ?
It is very unlikely that Gen X (and Y and millenials) will the same longevity as the silent and boomer generations. Gen X etc will also, most likely, have much lower healthy life expectancy.
Why is that then? It’s simple really, for decades we have been poisoning the environment and our bodies :
Synthetic molecules, around 80,000 are wafting around the planet, we don’t have any idea what damage they are doing to us but we know it’s not good.
Diet, the Silent generation (born 1928-45) mostly started life eating ‘organic’ food. Boomers may have had some ultra-processed foods (UPF) at a young age, Gen X, and subsequent generations grew up eating a lot of UPF’s. These quasi-foods are bad for our health, it is as simple as that, they destroy health, kill and disable people. The more you eat the worse it is, the younger you start eating them the worse it will be.
Obesity and diabetes. Linked to the above but worth noting separately “Generation X had significantly poorer levels of self-rated health, and higher levels of obesity and diabetes compared with Boomers, with no real difference in physical activity between the two groups.”
Despair, (depression, suicidal ideation, drug use and alcohol abuse) have been rising and are associated with a post 2016 decline in average longevity. “Researchers found that, compared to previous generations, members of Generation X and Generation Y showed poorer physical health, higher levels of unhealthy behaviors such as alcohol use and smoking, and more depression and anxiety.” ****
Sleep, or more precisely lack of it and poor quality sleep has become pandemic. That said it is hitting GenY and Millenials more than Gen X. Lack of quality sleep isn’t good for our health, it causes inflammation, memory loss, car accidents, limits weight loss, increases the risk of later life dementia etc etc.
It’s a bit difficult to know where to go now with this article, this is probably because my IQ took a hit from all the lead I breathed in from car exhausts as a youngster. Hahaha.
Back in the day most of my friends and I never thought we would get a State pension, that even if we made it that far the government would increase the minimum retirement age. And guess what? They did. In the UK it rose (for men) from 66 to 67 and is set to rise to 67 by 2028 and then up to 68 a few years after. It used to be 60 for women but rather than reduce the age for men it must have seemed a much better idea to raise the age for women to be the same as for men. In France the retirement age is 62 but the government wants to bump that up to 65.
These governments, and many others, are worried about the demographic crisis of a lot of retired people depending economically on a decreasing number of working age people. The data above would seem to suggest that this will be less of a problem than the demographers think. Life expectancy is almost certain to decline (continue to decline in some countries). Morbidity (the rate of incidence of disease) is going up, growing old gracefully is going to become a minority sport.
Evolution
The Black Death (caused by Yersinia pestis) killed 30 to 50% of the population in what were some of the most populated parts of the world. A lot of people didn’t survive to reproduce and their children died too. People at the time carrying two identical copies of the ERAP2 gene were more likely to survive (40 - 50% more likely) than those who had non-identical copies. The bacterium thus had an impact on the genetic makeup of following generations, a higher proportion of the population carrying two identical pairs of ERAP2. Unfortunately this gene that protected a part of the population and so was passed down more makes people more susceptible to a range of autoimmune diseases.
This type of understanding brings up the question of how our genetic transmission to future generations is being effected by a genetic selection caused by the factors that I listed above, synthetic molecules, diet etc. Time will tell.