It’s not just a fiscal fiasco: greying economies also innovate less
That compounds the problems of shrinking workforces and rising bills for health care and pensions
“Adam is a special child,” says the voice-over, as the camera pans across abandoned classrooms and deserted maternity wards. “He’s the last child born in Italy.” The short film made for Plasmon, an Italian brand of baby food owned by Kraft-Heinz, a giant American firm, is set in 2050. It imagines an Italy where babies are a thing of the past. It is exaggerating for effect, of course, but not by as much as you might imagine. The number of births in Italy peaked at 1m in 1964; by 2050, the UN projects, it will have shrunk by almost two-thirds, to 346,000.
Plasmon knows what side its fortified biscuits are buttered: a shortage of babies is not good for sales of baby food. But the rapid ageing of many countries around the world will be bad not just for certain industries, or for governments whose costs rise as their revenues decline. The falling number of educated young workers entering the labour market will also reduce innovation, sapping economic growth across the board. Over time, this effect may prove the most economically damaging result of the greying of the rich world, eclipsing growing bills for pensions and health care.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "The old and the zestless"
From the June 3rd 2023 edition
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