Who Will Care for the Elderly? - Ronald S Toth - January 1985

Ronald S Toth

National governments are now faced with an ever-growing elderly population supported by fewer and fewer younger workers. What is the solution? Life expectancy in 1900 was 47; today, 74. Everywhere within the Western industrialized nations life expectancy has increased. But with the ever-increasing life span, a major problem is developing. People hear about the population explosion. The teeming masses of Calcutta and Cairo. China, India and black African nations grapple with swelling populations. But from the Ural Mountains to the British Isles, the United States, Canada and Japan, the birthrate is well below the 2.1 needed to maintain the national population. West Germany, for example, has a birthrate of only 1.4. The U.S., 1.8; Britain, 1.9; Canada, 1.8; and Japan, 1.8. These figures depict a very serious unforeseen trend. - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library