The demographic bomb

“After the end of the Cold War, the ageing of the population will be the biggest challenge for Europe. Yet because demographic changes are so slow, we are in danger of overlooking them.” This is the warning of the former German chancellor Helmut Kohl from 1994, issued at a meeting of heads of state and government from the European Union. A decade and a half later, the demographic changes are somewhat more visible, but many of the European leaders, coming from a different generation than Helmut Kohl, seem determined to ignore his warning. However, the phenomenon is real: significant parts of Europe’s population are ageing and Romania is and could become one of the worst affected nations. The phenomenon brings about a number of changes, in the pension system, in the social security, in medicine, in consumption habits, in the population structure. Some of them are benign, others can be managed, but pensions and social security already are or will be in serious trouble.

A survey of the International Monetary Fund estimated three years ago that the pensioners/active population ratio would halve in Europe by 2050, from four to two active people for each pensioner. Also in 2006, a report of the European Commission estimated that the workforce in the EU would go down by 48 million people, that is 16% from 2010 through 2050, while the number of elderly people would go up by 77%, that is 58 million people. In other words, Europe is slowly heading towards a sci-fi film scenario, with a touch of comedy: a retirement home continent, with many old people and delicate Asian or Indian nurses watching over them.

Let us imagine another equally tragicomic scenario: instead of baby food or diaper commercials, we will see commercials advertising food and personal care products for the elderly, while the voluptuous women who have taken over our TV screens today -what other type of character could convey the message of those manufacturing goods for young people? – will be replaced by respectable middle-aged ladies. To the rich Europe such a scenario is, from the elderly man’s standpoint, bearable, and from the standpoint of the authorities, passable, as wealth will always attract youth energy. How is it for the poor Europe and especially for Romania?

As far as Romania is concerned, the scenarios, devised by either international bodies, or local experts are as pessimistic as they get: following the about two million people decline after the Revolution, Romania’s population could reach somewhere between 13.3 million inhabitants according to EBRD and 16-17 million, according to surveys of the European Union, the World Bank and the UN. The fertility rate has gone down from 2.3 children/woman in 1989 to 1.3 children/woman in 2008 (a constant level in the last twelve years) and the birth rate (the gross number of births per one thousand people per year) has gone down from 13.7/1000 in 1990 to 10/1000 in 2008.

It also needs to be said that the average life span has gone up in the years after the Revolution from 70 to 74 years.The demographic picture must also include the main trends registered in the world, as identified by professor Jack Goldstone from George Mason University: along with the reduction in population in the European and former USSR space, there are also the massive increases in Muslim countries, the migration from the third world towards developed countries, the impact of AIDS and pandemics, the rapid growth and the increasingly more important role of urban population in the third world. Amid the overall changes induced by demographic trends, the pension system is the most threatened and exposed.