The 20th century has seen a steady rise in the average life expectancy of people, especially those living in developed nations. The reduction in mortality rates may have brought some issues to individuals and society. The essay will discuss the number of problems and solutions to address those.
With the development of socio-politics, economics, and medical science, longevity and survival have reached a tremendous age. Consequently, this impacts the government budget to fulfil the senior citizen pension and manage the aged people in the workforce who have become redundant, and some go on working part-time or casually. And such a vacuum of working hours affects the government’s income from tax and withdrawal of superannuation. Secondly, due to the increase in the number of aged people, communities are also hardly adjusting in search of affordable social housing because, in most developed countries, priorities for buying and renting them are applied to the veterans and senior citizens only. This results in skyrocketing rent clearly due to the high demand and low supply of homes.
As people’s life expectancies loom, the problems emanating as such can be addressed through potential solutions. The government can revise the age of for retirement from 65 years to 67 years, for instance, as the Australian government has implemented it in the year 2021. This way, the government will continue to achieve its target of the aged population as a robust workforce, increasing the flow of liquid money in the market and putting down on reducing the burden by deferring the early pension scheme. Also, the government can allow affordable house-buying options for younger people to accommodate them in the community by lessening the stamp duty on it. Lastly, creating an abundant pool of tradespersons like carpenters, panel beaters and the like, and non-trade workers in aged care and community support is the need of the hour to tackle the rising population of geriatrics.
In conclusion, as the challenges will rise more in the future from the ageing perspectives, the first–world countries must seek solutions and work hand-in-hand with their younger counterparts.