Of Headless Chickens

 

One of our MEPs, David Casa, wrote an interesting piece on 25th January which I hadn't read until my attention was drawn to it by a letter in yesterday's Times by Karm Farrugia, who appears to find the two following points ridiculous:

1. "Despite the fact that people are living longer due to amelioration in our lives, fewer children are being born".
2. "As history has shown, there has never been economic growth without a growth in population."

While those points could have been phrased a little bit more accurately, I find that they do reflect two important realities:

1. While our total population figures appear to be stable (and are even growing slightly), this is mainly due to the fact that people are living longer. It does not change the fact that birth rates are falling rapidly. It will take some decades until this is reflected fully in terms of bottom-line population figures. For the next few years it will take the relatively harmless form of a higher average age. Still, the fact that a headless chicken continues to run doesn't mean that it's heading for a long and healthy life.

2. A serious demographic crunch would obviously have economic consequences - in terms of loss of economies of scale, among other things. This would interfere with our standard of living, even after the 'aging population' phase is over. I doubt if serious growth in GDP per capita could take place while the economy is contracting in absolute terms. And the potential economic consequences are, in my humble opinion, almost insignificant in comparison to the political ones.

So while Carm Farrugia has every right to amuse himself, and while David Casa's articles could do with some improvement, nothing changes the fact that we have a serious problem to address. The Government has already taken some feeble steps in the right direction but I doubt whether these alone will make any impression on the problem.