the demographic FATE of intelligent species: 43.9% of the South Korean population may be 65 and older in 2050, up from 16.5% in 2021

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

43.9% of the South Korean population may be 65 and older in 2050, up from 16.5% in 2021

They will still sing in 2050

Imagine a society where close to half of the population is 65 and older. Given this 2050 projection, South Korea will have to make radical changes or face big economic trouble at such a high level of retirees.

From the Korea Herald, "16.5% of S. Korea’s population aged 65 and older in 2021: report":

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People aged 65 and older made up 16.5 percent of South Korea’s population this year, a report showed

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By 2050, the number of elderly people could account for 43.9 percent of the country’s population, according to the report.

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1 comment:

Michael J. Sloboda, MMJuly 29, 2022 at 10:27 PM
When I arrived in Hong Kong, I heard a joke: "In Hong Kong, the most effective form of birth control is high rent." Thirty years later, that joke is still not funny, and this city is aging rapidly.
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The demogra-fate hypothesis (outline)

If all else—your body and memories, stars, the universe itself—has a birth-death life cycle, can alien/human species exist forever? As they modernize, birthrates in 100+ countries have fallen below the replacement minimum of 2.1 births/woman. Sustained sub-2.1 fertility will make societies older and smaller. With India, South Africa, Mexico... crossing below the 2.1 threshold, will the entire species follow fast-aging and shrinking Japan, whose median age may top 60 well before 2100?

Enter our demogra-fate hypothesis: does population aging conclude the natural life cycle of all intelligent species in the universe?

Given no say on their own place/date of birth, high-tech species are just evolved wildflowers of the great cosmic desert. While sentient life may have arisen separately in lonely oases far across the cosmos, are aliens and humans that different in nature or destiny? Due to the unfathomable vastness of space, there should be quite a few of us. Even if only 01 civilization existed for every 10 galaxies, there would still be around 20 billion civilizations concurrently alive within our 200-billion-galaxy universe. Can 0.3-million-year-old humankind survive until the death of this Big Bang-started universe in tens of billions of years, in a Big Crunch/Chill/Rip scenario? Or do intelligent species—brainier but always part of wild nature—just blindly and purposelessly bloom and die, here one million years and gone the next? With no real say in their own death, like true desert wildflowers?

How, actually, do high-tech societies grow old and die naturally? Does banal aging-and-death await all cosmic civilizations that survive accidents or ecological suicide in younger years? Is population aging and decline on Earth the inevitable final stage of such a natural life cycle? Although galaxies apart, are those enlightened societies all helpless against nature's age-then-die law? Despite being conscious of such law, something no lower species is capable of? Much like humans being aware of yet helpless against their own bodies' aging and dying?

In deciphering intelligent life's (wild?) nature and (fleeting?) destiny in the universe, the demogra-fate hypothesis is empirically based. Population aging & decline has been widely spotted and measured in the very first alien civilization ever studied: our own. Until refuted by other cases of sentient life, shouldn't this most factually verifiable hypothesis be prioritized?

Cosmic civilizations are epic wildlife spectacles that run their own course over millions of years, and you—a fluky nanosecond of consciousness and curiosity—can do nothing but play tourist and enjoy your part of the action. Your dear species having an inexorable life cycle is hardcore fatalism, but so is your ephemeral alien body dying against the mind’s hope. Make peace with the unfeeling nature in and around you. Find beauty in your fleeting moment.