Currently, according to Lenta.ru, 11.56 million people of retirement age (60 for women and 65 for men) live in Great Britain. And only 11.50 million Britons are under 16. Meanwhile, in 20-30 years, these children will have to support not only their elderly parents but also many of today's old people, who with today's standard of living have every chance of living to 90.
The elderly themselves are full of vigor. Recently they demanded that authorities remove road signs depicting stooped people with canes from the streets. Instead, the offended pensioners suggest placing some other image on the 'elderly pedestrians' sign. A similar problem was faced by authorities in a town in Staffordshire. They installed a bench at a bus stop, specially placed away from the road so that elderly people, if they fall off, would not end up on the roadway. However, the town's pensioners took offense at this care and called officials 'health and safety Nazis'.
Many British elderly people in fact show that they have preserved not only an interest in life but also a measure of youthful carelessness. For example, 68-year-old Patricia Tabram was convicted again in 2007 of manufacturing and possessing drugs. The old lady pleads not guilty, claiming that she grew marijuana solely for adding to cookies.
For elderly people who are more attracted to spy games than drug lord games, in 2005 a chance appeared to join British intelligence MI5. The intelligence agency announced a recruitment of older administrative workers, motivating this by saying that many valuable qualities emerge with age.
And an 80-year-old UK resident, former Olympic runner Peter Hildreth, was recently detained in a supermarket for running on escalators. Store management promised to ban Hildreth from the premises if he continued to violate safety rules. Hildreth replied that he was simply trying to keep in athletic shape.
Less extreme pensioners spend time learning new technologies. A study conducted in 2007 showed that currently elderly Britons are more into the Internet than gardening and handicrafts.
It must be said that some UK residents manage to find their own special romance in the aging of the nation. As evidenced, for example, by the use of the name 'Grey Britain' instead of 'Great Britain'.
However, romance is romance, but the problem of the declining share of the working-age population definitely requires a solution. Experts see two ways out. First, conditions can be created so that the length of working life steadily increases with life expectancy. Here it is proposed to act both with a 'stick' (legally raising the retirement age) and a 'carrot' (adapting the urban environment to the needs of elderly people, organizing special workplace training for them).
It should be noted that the fastest growth in Great Britain is in the number of elderly people over 80 - that is, those who apparently cannot work at all. Over the past 27 years, their number has doubled. In addition, in many cases, efforts to keep an elderly person able to work and to adapt the workplace to their needs may exceed the efficiency of that person's labor.
Second, the aging of the nation and the decline in birth rates can be compensated by immigration from countries with better demographics. As is known, this mechanism is already in full swing. In the UK in 2007, 23% of newborns were born to foreign families, and in some areas of London this figure exceeds 70%. The disadvantages of this option are also known: there are no guarantees or evidence that immigrants will out of compassion work for the aging British nation while modestly content with the role of guests (or even more so, the role of assimilated guests).
Of course, UK residents have prepared for 'universal old age' by accumulating savings. In 2007, the savings of Britons over 50 amounted to almost $10 trillion and exceeded the combined GDP of France, Germany and the UK. However, this money will still need to be exchanged for goods and services that someone must produce...
In general, it remains only to wait to see what situation will develop in the UK in 25 years, when 43% of the population will be in the age group 'over fifty'.