By population decline we mean a depopulation scenario, when the birth rate falls, the number of young people decreases, while the proportion of elderly people increases?
Automation can create a dynamically changing labor market. Today you had a job, tomorrow it is automated, you need to find another job, learn new skills required for it, and all of this.
Not a problem for the young (especially since automation increases the general standard of living, so young people will often find that their new job pays better).
But older people find it more difficult to adapt, learn new skills and find their place in a changed world.
And then there is career growth. Imagine an elderly gentleman who has spent 30 years building a career, accumulating valuable experience, and is USED to receiving a huge salary for his qualifications... And he is told that he has been replaced by a video card, his skills are now worth nothing on the market, and in the job available to him he will now be paid the same as a snotty 20-year-old yesterday's schoolboy. Do you think this won't become a point of social tension in a situation where there aren't many young workers?
There is also a solidarity pension system, which creates a greater burden on workers the smaller the proportion of young people and the greater the proportion of old people.
And in the scenario of a population decline with a simultaneous increase in living standards - this will create enormous social tension, when the shrinking working class will ask itself: why should we give more and more of the money we earned with our sweat and blood to old people who were unable to save for their old age when were younger?
Even if no one voices this as an official slogan, it will still be implied in political decisions and will boil down to at least the fact that old people will be denied an increase in their standard of living ("because we are already giving them more and more, but look at what a terrible world they left us, and now they want to live in luxury at the expense of our sweat and blood?").
But with the aging of the population, the proportion of old people will increase very much, and, if we are talking about democratic regimes, their political influence will be increased.
And the situation, when we have a confrontation between a shrinking productive minority and people who do not produce anything, but have power over them and live at their expense - can end badly. It will definitely end badly. Like, really badly
Automation can create a dynamically changing labor market. Today you had a job, tomorrow it is automated, you need to find another job, learn new skills required for it, and all of this.
Not a problem for the young (especially since automation increases the general standard of living, so young people will often find that their new job pays better).
But older people find it more difficult to adapt, learn new skills and find their place in a changed world.
And then there is career growth. Imagine an elderly gentleman who has spent 30 years building a career, accumulating valuable experience, and is USED to receiving a huge salary for his qualifications... And he is told that he has been replaced by a video card, his skills are now worth nothing on the market, and in the job available to him he will now be paid the same as a snotty 20-year-old yesterday's schoolboy. Do you think this won't become a point of social tension in a situation where there aren't many young workers?
There is also a solidarity pension system, which creates a greater burden on workers the smaller the proportion of young people and the greater the proportion of old people.
And in the scenario of a population decline with a simultaneous increase in living standards - this will create enormous social tension, when the shrinking working class will ask itself: why should we give more and more of the money we earned with our sweat and blood to old people who were unable to save for their old age when were younger?
Even if no one voices this as an official slogan, it will still be implied in political decisions and will boil down to at least the fact that old people will be denied an increase in their standard of living ("because we are already giving them more and more, but look at what a terrible world they left us, and now they want to live in luxury at the expense of our sweat and blood?").
But with the aging of the population, the proportion of old people will increase very much, and, if we are talking about democratic regimes, their political influence will be increased.
And the situation, when we have a confrontation between a shrinking productive minority and people who do not produce anything, but have power over them and live at their expense - can end badly. It will definitely end badly. Like, really badly