Aging of Europe

The aging of Europe, also commonly known as the greying of Europe, is a social phenomenon in Europe characterized by a decrease in fertility rates and an increase in mortality rates. The population of Europe as a percentage of the world population is rapidly decreasing and is expected to decline over the next forty years. The "greying" of Europe specifically refers to the increase in the percentage of Europe's elderly population relative to its workforce.

Overall trends
William H. Frey, an analyst for the Brookings Institution think tank, predicts the median age in Europe will increase from 37.7 years old in 2003 to 52.3 years old by 2050 while the median age of Americans will rise to only 35.4 years old. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates only 39% of Europeans between the ages of 55 to 65 work. If Frey's prediction for Europe's declining median age is correct, productivity in Europe will radically decrease over the next four decades. Austria's Social Affairs Minister painted a bleaker picture in 2006, saying the 55 to 64 year old age bracket in the European Union will be larger than the 15 to 24 year old bracket by 2010. The Economic Policy Committee and the European Commission issued a report in 2006 estimating the working age population in the EU will decrease by 48 million, 16%, between 2010 and 2050, while the elderly population will increase by 58 million, 77%. By 2050 the ratio of Europe's working age to senior age population will decrease by 50%, two workers instead of four for every retiree. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the European Union will experience a 14% decrease in its workforce and a 7% decrease in its consumer populations by 2030.

Pope Benedict XVI warned the continent will die if European society accepts abortion and rejects Christianity, trends he asserted to personal selfishness and inactivity. He lamented the "child-poor" situation and defended priests' celibacy in a speech he gave in Mariazell, Austria on September 7, 2007.

Belgium
The International Monetary Fund's (IMF) High Council of Finance's (HCF) Study Committee on Aging (SCA) predicted in 2007 that Belgium's population will increase by 5% by 2050 due to immigration, a higher fertility rate, and longer life expectancy. However, the IMF's study indicates Belgium's elderly population will increase by over 63% to over 25% of the country's overall population. The Belgian government spent 9.1% of its GDP on pensions and 7.1% on health care expenses in 2005. By 2050 total social spending is expected to increase by 5.8%, assuming there is no change in the age of retirement. Most of this higher social spending comes from pension and health care, rising by 3.9% to 13.0% of GDP and 3.7% to 10.8% of GDP respectively. The decline in the workforce will partly compensate by lowering unemployment which will in turn lower the cost of childcare.

Italy
Italy will need to raise its retirement age to 77 or admit 2.2 million immigrants annually to maintain its worker to retiree ratio. About 25% of Italian women do not have children while another 25% only have one child. The city of Liguria in northwestern Italy now has the highest ratio of elderly to youth in the world. 10% of Liguria's schools closed in the 2000s. The city of Genoa, one of Italy's largest, is declining faster than most European cities with a death rate, 13.7 deaths per 1,000 people, almost twice the birth rate, 7.7 births per 1,000 people, as of 2005. The Italian government has tried to limit and reverse the trend by offering financial incentives to couples who have children and increasing immigration. The Prodi government established a Ministry of Family headed by Rosi Bindi to encourage population growth. According to Bindi the government will increase the payment childbearing couples receive to €2,500 and will provide state-funded day care, transportation to school and books. While fertility has remain stagnant, immigration has minimized the drop in the workforce.

More than 30% of Italian males over the age of 30 live in homes owned by their parents, in part because the cost of living in Italy rose after the introduction of the euro. Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, Italy's Economy Minister, proposed granting a tax break worth €1,000 ($1,441) to Italians between the ages of 20 and 40 who rent apartments. He publicized the idea during a Senate hearing on the government's budget for 2008, referring to the young males as "bamboccioni," big babies. Francesco Caruso, a Communist in President Prodi's coalition, Walter Veltroni, the Mayor of Rome, and Forza Italia lawmaker Isabella Bertolini condemned Minister Padoa-Schioppa's use of the word "bamboccioni" as an offensive caricature of young Italian males. Union leader Guglielmo Epifani and writer Aldo Nove said Padoa-Schioppa's tax break does not go far enough. Nove, author of My Name is Roberta, I'm 40 years old and earn 250 euros a month, said that in 1978 a tenant spent about 25% of his salary on housing. Now renting an apartment exceeds the salary of a young worker. "What else is there to say?"

Eastern Europe
The World Bank issued a report on June 20, 2007, "From Red To Grey: 'The Third Transition' of Aging Populations In Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union," predicting that between 2007 and 2027 the populations of Georgia and Ukraine will decrease by 17% and 24% respectively. The World Bank estimates the population of 65 or older citizens in Poland and Slovenia will increase from 13% to 21% and 16% to 24% respectively between 2005 and 2025.

Russia
The population of Russia decreased from 149 million people in 1990 to 143 million people in 2005, a 4% decline. The World Bank predicts the population will decrease to 111 million by 2050, 32 million people less, a 22% decline. Other demographers have issued starker predictions, estimating less than 100 million Russian citizens by 2050. Population decline in Russia has been compounded by large-scale emigration following the fall of the Soviet Union and a poor health care system. Lev Gudkov, a demographer with the Russian Center for Public Opinion Research, estimated in 2002 that over the next fifty years Russia's population may decrease by 50%, 72 million fewer people, with one retiree for every worker. Gudkov said parts of Siberia and the Far East are becoming depopulated "deserts."

Provincial governments have begun offering special incentives to couples who procreate. In 2005 Sergei Morozov, the Governor of Ulyanovsk, made September 12 a provincial holiday, the "Day of Conception," on which couples are given half of the work day off to copulate. Mothers who give birth on June 12, Russia's national day, are rewarded with money and expensive consumer items. In the first round of the competition 311 women participated and 46 babies were born on the following September 12. Over 500 women participated in the second round in 2006 and 78 gave birth. The province's birth rate rose 4.5% between 2006 and 2007.

Russian nationalists strongly oppose increasing immigration levels because of xenophobia and the fear of a loss of identity. Many blame the presence of women in the workplace which they argue reduces fertility rates. Yevgeny Krasinyev, head of migration studies at the state-run Institute of Social and Economic Population Studies in Moscow, said Russia should only accept immigrants from the Commonwealth of Independent States, a view echoed by Alexander Belyakov, the head of the Duma's Resources Committee. Thousands of migrant workers from Ukraine, Moldova, and the rest of the CIS have already entered Russia but are working illegally and are not paying taxes.

Japan
The aging of developed nations is not confined to the European continent. Japan's proportion of elderly citizens is the highest in the world with 21.5% of the population over the age of 65. This proportion increased from 26.5 million in 2006 to 27.4 million in 2007, a 0.7% increase. The Japanese health ministry estimates the nation's total population will decrease by 25% from 127.8 million in 2005 to 95.2 million by 2050. Japan will need to raise its retirement age to 77 or admit 10 million immigrants annually between 2000 and 2050 to maintain its worker to retiree ratio. Japan's elderly population, aged 65 or older, comprised 20% of the nation's population in June 2006, a percentage expected to increase to 40% by 2055.

Paul S. Hewitt, an analyst for International Politics and Society, wrote in 2002 that Japan, in addition to the European nations of Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Sweden, will experience an unprecedented labor shortage by 2010. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates Japan will experience an 18% decrease in its workforce and 8% decrease in its consumer population by 2030. Hewitt believes this decline in overall population and shortage in labor is retarding economic growth and lowering nations' gross domestic product. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates labor shortages will decrease the European Union's economic growth by 0.4% annually from 2000 to 2025 at least, after which shortages will cost the EU 0.9% in growth. In Japan these shortages will lower growth by 0.7% annually until 2025, after which Japan will also experience a 0.9% loss in growth. In contrast, Australia, Canada, and the United States will all see a growth in their workforce.

United States
The percentage of prisoners in federal and state prisons 55 and older increased by 33% from 2000 to 2005 while the prison population grew by only 9%. The Southern Legislative Conference found that in 16 southern states the elderly prisoner population increased on average by 145% between 1997 and 2007. The growth in the elderly population brought along higher health care costs, most notably seen in the 10% average increase in state prison budgets from 2005 to 2006. The SLC expects the percentage of elderly prisoners relative to the overall prison population to continue to rise. Ronald Aday, a professor of aging studies at Middle Tennessee University and author of Aging Prisoners: Crisis in American Corrections, concurs. One out of six prisoners in California is serving a life sentence. Aday predicts that by 2020 16% percent of those serving life sentences will be elderly.

Under U.S. law convicted felons lose their eligibility to apply for Medicare and Medicaid. Housing one prisoner costs a state between $18,000 and $31,000 annually, $33 per day for the average prisoner and $100 per day for an elderly prisoner. Most DOCs report spending more than 10 percent of the annual budget on elderly care. State governments pay all of their inmates' housing costs which significantly increase as prisoners age.