(emphasis mine)
> Population growth is vital for the world economy.
Fuck the world economy, then. We're not going back to '60s.
You like your pension? Because pensions need an ever-growing population.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/06/japan-robots-w...
Also, prison as elderly care: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47033704
OTOH if the population isn't growing and economy is contracting as a result, you could find yourself paying a lot more than you do now. Like, potentially, several times the amount.
Pensions, like infinite population growth, aren't sustainable. Most people no longer spend their entire career at a single company, so the concept doesn't even make much sense anymore.
If you're referring to a government pension like social security rather than a company sponsored pension, that can and should be made sustainable, unlike the borrow-from-the-future mess that we have today.
But if there are no working age people in 2049 then there's nobody to take care of you so your 2019 dollars are worthless.
In other words if demand for caregivers greatly exceeds supply inflation is going to destroy your savings.
I expect to have to pay for things in 2049 just like everybody else. I anticipate that dollars saved today won't go as far in 2049, and so I save more than I think I'll need. If higher than expected inflation or lack of caregiver supply is a problem, then we'll have to find a way to deal with it. If my dollars won't go as far as I think they will, well that's tough cookies for me, but that's not any different from how the world works today too. You can't anticipate everything.
But suggesting that the root cause of this problem is women not having enough babies, and insinuating that things would be oh so much easier if we could just go back to how things were in the '60s where half the population was disenfranchised (as this article does) -- is utter lunacy. That's not happening. That shouldn't happen. And even if it did happen, it wouldn't actually fix the problem.
What's an average mutual fund's annual return? For mine, it's around 4-6%, I think, which agrees with the average here: "The 20-year return on mutual funds averages 4.67%."[1]
So, as long as you safely invest what you're saving, aren't you statistically covered and then some?
0: https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-i...
1: https://www.creditdonkey.com/average-mutual-fund-return.html
People reading this a century from now: hey you should've colonized the Solar System with orbital habitats neck deep in asteroid belt platinum, kids those days smh.
In the future, the demand for eldercare is going to skyrocket, with a lot less supply. Working folks will be fine because they'll be spending their money on stuff produced by robots: food, durable goods, et cetera. The elderly are going to be @#$%ed because I doubt that robots are going to be very good at providing eldercare.
Why? If a group of people paid into a retirement fund enough to sustain them all, and called it a pension, then there is no need for growth.
The problem is not pensions; it's underfunded pensions. There's no reason they cannot work.