What Is Apocalyptic Demography? Discuss the Five Inter-Related Themes That

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The Answer is • The term apocalyptic demography (sometimes also called voodoo demography) characterizes the oversimplified notion that a demographic trend-in our case population aging-has catastrophic consequences for a society. The complexity of aging is reduced to a one-sided negative view that our society cannot afford increasing numbers and percentages of older people. Apocalyptic demography is prominently seen in the media today, especially in discussions of medicare and the health-care system.
• Apocalyptic demography consists of five interrelated themes: (1) Aging as a social problem. Rather than celebrating the control over unwanted births and early deaths that population aging represents, it is viewed as negative, as a problem that needs fixing; (2) The homogenization of older people. All older people are seen as the same. In particular, they are stereotyped as well off, e.g., as rich golfers and cruise-ship travellers, as "greedy geezers"; (3) Age-blaming. The elderly are blamed for overusing social programs and consequently for government debt/deficits; (4) Intergenerational injustice. Older people are seen as getting more than their fair share of societal resources, and this inequity is predicted to lead to severe intergenerational conflict/clashes; and (5) The intertwining of population aging and social policy. Aging has become the guiding paradigm of the Canadian welfare state.
• The fact that the total dependency ratio has not altered significantly between 1951 and 2001 makes it difficult to accept the view that many of the social problems of the day are due to changes in the Canadian age structure and population aging in particular. Canada will be able to afford an aging population with little difficulty as long as it experiences at least moderate levels of economic growth.
• While it is true that the largest portion of the social envelope goes to seniors, in the form of public pensions and medicare, the majority of elderly Canadians are far from wealthy and nearly one-half of old women without a spouse live in poverty. Further, a considerable amount of research shows that population aging itself will account for only a small part of future health-care costs and will require little, if any, increase in public expenditures in healthcare.
• While it seems to make sense that an aging population leads to increased health-care costs, the evidence-at least in terms of hospital use, physician use, and pharmaceuticals-strongly negates the importance of age structure in affecting health-care costs.
• When Canada, and other Western countries, ran into trouble with government debt/deficit, it was widely attributed to increased spending on social programs, and the target of this supposed overspending was seniors. A number of Canadian economists have shown that the debt and deficit are not due to overspending on social programs, pointing the finger instead at Canadian monetary policy and especially the Bank of Canada.
• The theme of intergenerational justice often manifests in the intergenerational equity debate. On the one side are those who argue that the aged are getting more than they deserve from the public purse; that is, our society is organized such that there is generational inequity that favours the old. On the other side of the debate is the intergenerational interdependence perspective. The proponents of this side emphasize that the generations are, and should continue to be, interdependent.
• Finally, if we believe that the elderly will bankrupt our society through their demands on the public health-care and pension systems, it is a simple step to move toward a dismantling of the old age welfare state-and the whole welfare state, for that matter-to counteract the societal burden of an aging population. Evidence of this can be seen in attempts to privatize pensions as much as possible and in the reductions in health-care spending (and associated privatization) that have been posed as inevitable due to population aging.

What Is Apocalyptic Demography? Discuss the Five Inter-Related Themes That

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