Demographic Optimization

Demographic Optimization is a rather dry term to describe an intriguing area of social and economic policy which is already important in some developed countries and is set to become even more so.

The phrase was coined by Stanford academic, Rainer Weiss, to sum up a range of policies for tackling the problem of falling birth rates and ageing populations. This, of course, is an issue which is already current in Japan, set to become important in Europe and eventually in the USA (where the demographic continues to be skewed by immigration).

The problems of this demographic shift come in several guises. Older people generally require greater levels of care and there are fewer people to provide that care. There are also fewer people in the working-age population to support them, and greater longevity also has an impact on pension and insurance schemes which were not designed for the lengthy retirements currently being enjoyed. There is also a smaller proportion of the population who are productive and who are available to carry out essential jobs.

For Weiss, the solution is demographic optimization, or put rather more simply, making the most of the demographic you have. So, for example, Weiss suggested that less academic children should be allowed to leave high school at fourteen to engage in a mixture of work and skills-based education. At the other end of the spectrum he suggested that retirement should be more flexible and that there should be tax incentives to encourage the elderly to work. He also argued that increasing the number of elderly people in work, even part-time or voluntary work, would also maintain a healthier population and therefore reduce the burden of health and social care – he admitted though, that the latter point was conjecture rather than evidence-based.

At the same time, Weiss argued that governments and industry should be seeking to enhance non-human productivity (approachable language is clearly not Weiss’s strong suit) – in other words, as many of life’s mundane tasks as possible should be mechanized.

Interestingly, Weiss also condemns the simple-mindedness of those who suggest that greater immigration is the solution to the demographic malaise in the developed economies. As he has said, ‘This is a short-term and blinkered approach to a long-term problem. And remember, migrant workers get old, also.’

What he doesn’t say, but that perhaps needs saying, is that the developing economies of the world will all eventually face the same problem, and that barring miracles of medical science, a demographic skewed towards the aged will become the norm. To that extent, the countries which will thrive in the next century or two will be those that tackle the underlying structure of the problem rather than those that simply try to use migration as a solution.

(coming next - the black flower)