by Tanada » Tue 20 Jun 2017, 23:13:57
I don't expect dying baby boomers will have nearly the effect you seem to be anticipating.
Why is simple math. The baby boomers were all born in the 21 years from 1945-1966. World population in 1970 after every baby boomer alive today had already been born stood at 3,700,000,000 humans. Today we have 7,550,000,000 humans. Even more so than that makes it look like because the older generation that made up most of the 3,700,000,000 people were born in 1944 or before, which means those still alive are 73 or older, and as we all know the grim reaper considers those folks prime targets; few of them make it to 83 and fewer make it to 93 and very very few make it to 103.
That means virtually everyone born before the baby boomers has already passed on or has one foot on a banana peel as I type this.
So lets be very generous and say 400,000,000 of that 1970 population are still alive today. If they all died in their sleep this very night that would be less than 10% of the world population as it stands right now. In addition all of them are well past child bearing age so their deaths would not do one iota to slow the birth rate.
Sure in Europe, Australia and North America the baby boomers are a significant slice of the population. On the world stage however they are a drop in the bucket likely numbering about 5 percent or even less of the world population total.
Based on the world population clock site I prefer,
Births this year________________65,897,279
Deaths this year_______________27,240,452
Population Growth this year_____38,656,000
Combined that means we are adding about 215,000 people a day every day to world population. Until you up the world death rate by another 215,000 people every day to get it around 370,000 total daily deaths the population is going to keep growing. The average age of the world population today, counting all those baby boomers with the grim reaper looking to greet soon, stands at 29.9 years.
That is a lot more balanced than it was from 1955-1985 when it averaged around 23 years old for the total population. However as those pre-baby boomer generations have passed on and the percentage birth rate has slowed the number has gradually crept upwards over the last three decades to about 30. I can remember when the world hit the 5,000,000,000 mark in the mid 1980's and some news show did a special on how half the population of Mongolia was 16 or younger. Now THAT is a baby boom, and it was true of a lot of countries that were undergoing rapid modernization that cut infant mortality rates very deeply.
Pause and consider, that means 2,500,000,000 more people alive right now were born AFTER 1987. Stretch that point a little further and you will realize there were enough more on top of those to replace everyone who died from the 5,000,000,000 who were alive in 1987 but who are not alive today. In 2015 .0077*7,300,000,000= 56,210,000 people died in that year. Roughly the same number died in the years from 1987-2015 because the death rate per thousand declined steeply due to the youthening of the total population, and improved health care access to things like broad spectrum anti-biotics in even the poorest countries.
So rough estimate 50,000,000*30=1,500,000,000 people who were alive in 1987 died before today, which means the real number of people 30 or younger is 2,500,000,000+1,500,000,000=4,000,000,000 out of the 7,550,000,000 total now alive.
4,000/7,550=52.98% of the world population alive this instant was born within the last 30 years. Because those are the population well within the reproductive age of <40 years old you could knock off the other 47% of us tonight and in a few years they would be right back up to 7,550,000,000
In fact just for fun lets say God or Nature or some artificial plague from some teenagers genetics experiment killed everyone 41 and over tonight.
World Population 1977 was 4,100,000,000;
Crude death rate of roughly 50,000,000/year*40/years=2,000,000,000;
Increase in world population since 1977 3,450,000,000
2,000,000,000+3,450,000,000=5,450,000,000 people alive after all 41+ drop dead.
It took humanity less than 30 years to go from 5,000,000,000 to 7,550,000,000 and;
5,450/7,550=72.185% of the humans alive today are in the reproductive age bracket of <40!
No doubt there would be a brief adjustment period as new leaders are selected from those currently 40 or less, but can you honestly say the 72 percent left behind would make a bigger mess without the elder generation that did a lot to create the mess we have today? Half of them are currently parents and a few are even grandparents so they have some clue about how the world works and that life honestly just is not fair. Not only that in almost every culture they would inherit the wealth left behind by the dead so their financial situation would be modestly to greatly improved, unless they happen to work at a nursing facility for the elderly.
I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.