Position Paper on Managing an Ageing Population

Position Paper on Managing an Aging Population
Country: The Netherlands
The world is now confronted with a problem of population ageing. This problem can be attributed to sustained low and late fertility, increased life expectancy due to medical advances, changing family formation patterns and growing international migration trends. This problem is ubiquitous around the more developed countries, and such a problem has an adverse impact on countries as it will reduce economic growth and increase the amount of resources needed to be allocated to the elderly, which in turn puts pressure on healthcare insurance systems and retirement-income-systems. Hence, it is imperative that we come up with solutions to alleviate the situation at hand. The Netherlands, being one of the most developed nations in the world, feels this problem acutely with an increasing aging population. Our median age is 40.8 years old, which is comparatively higher than other nations as we currently rank 22nd. At present, there are 2.5 million seniors aged 65 or more, and that number is estimated to skyrocket to 4.5 million by the year 2050. However, the Netherlands is better placed among other OECD countries as we have a large, funded occupational pension system in place. We have also implemented the Algemene Ouderdoms Wet, a general seniority law, which installed a state pension, guaranteed for all elderly. The Netherlands also has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. This is largely due to the fact that most women in our country are highly educated and therefore less inclined to giving birth to children as they are relatively more career-oriented than their counterparts in less developed nations. Information on birth control methods has been made widely accessible to teenagers due to our refined sex education system. Since most young adults use them effectively, the Netherlands has the lowest teenage pregnancy rate in the world. We also rank high in our share of women who are still...