The World Will Belong to the Old

I f we were walruses or penguins, environmentalists would launch daily campaigns to prevent our extinction, large corporations would donate 10 percent of their products to our cause, and Al Gore would film documentaries with some scrawny guy awkwardly trying to tie himself to a lonely chunk of ice in the sea. But we are humans, and no one will be talking about us — even though our aging population is a demographic time bomb. The silver lining is that, since man no longer cares about man, governments won’t be inventing any new taxes to try to save us.

By 2040, one in five Americans will be over the age of 65. Even today, Europe has many more elderly people than children, and the United States will reach the same imbalance around 2035. Every year, the gap widens: fewer young people, more old people. I didn’t study sociology for five years to state the obvious, but the fact is that fewer children are being born and medicine in advanced countries ensures that the elderly survive longer, with the exception of those who have Putin as a neighbor or endure communist health care.

Behold, the future: We will be old in a society full of old people. It will turn bars into venues for big discussions about the weather, turn supermarket queues into a carnival of lamentations, and quadruple the number of senseless traffic disputes between drivers as their reflexes dull and general agitation rises.

God made having children a reasonably fun act, but that hasn’t been enough. Man has managed to put his selfishness first. Be that as it may, we have too few children and we are getting too old, and that is also conditioning our economy.

In Europe, there is a great deal of concern about how public pension systems could collapse as young people of working age become fewer and fewer and the number of old people of pensionable age grows. Thanks to social democracy, a large number of Europeans still think that the money the government gives to pensioners is plucked from trees, not from the taxes paid up by active and employed citizens. The overburdening of the budget will be an increasing problem in the United States as well. Who is going to pay for this O.A.P. party?

Today, a reserved and settled old age is frowned upon and “active aging” is promoted, which means that even in old age, you cannot escape the temptation to join the gym, to take advantage of the opportunities that Tinder insists on giving you and biology wisely denies you, or to ski down a hill and break bones you didn’t know existed, at an age when they no longer weld back together so well.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the corresponding “silver economy” is emerging, a myriad of business opportunities for a generation of seniors who have more money than their grandparents ever did and are willing to spend it to stretch their quality of life as far as possible. Thus, according to experts, the over-65s are willing to pay for home-care systems and technologies that allow them to stay independent, enjoy luxury tourism, resume university life and education, and remain connected to the world of work even after nominal retirement.

We have often heard that the 21st century does not allow children to be children, insisting that they live adult experiences as soon as possible. That’s true. But the 21st century doesn’t let old people be old, either. Now they must stay fit, healthy, active, in love, educated, and, in a word, young. The Spanish humorist Jardiel Poncela wrote half a century ago that “youth is a defect that is corrected with time.” Proof of how everything is changing is that this quote no longer makes sense.

That old people live longer, of course, is good news; now that both Mom and Dad have to work, someone has to take care of the kids. The bad news is that not enough kids are being born, and that is perhaps the most painful symptom of disease in the West. Soon, grandparents will take care of our cats.

Population aging is not something that happens inexorably under the influence of the stars, without human intervention. Ideas have consequences. And this aging is the fruit of what governments and ideologues have promoted; after all, in many countries there is more aid for abortion than for having children.

We and our children will have to manage this aging society, a longer working life, and a lot of vacancies in places that used to be occupied by children, including schools and entertainment venues. In return, interesting business opportunities will arise, because, as we are already seeing in advertising, the perfect target will no longer be the young but the old. However, the bonanza of the silver economy and the fact that we are able to adapt will not hide the sorrow of an aging world, without the joy of children. However much the elites in Brussels and New York may say otherwise, the truly pressing issue is not the climate apocalypse but the alarming shift in the population pyramid.

The West must take very seriously the urgent need to get everyone procreating. Now that the post-pandemic summer of love is upon us and the streets are filled with sculpted bodies, it doesn’t seem too difficult. Perhaps, at least in America, this is an area where a favorable decision in Dobbs can help restore balance.