German welfare state 'can no longer be financed' — Merz
The German chancellor has called for a welfare reform, putting him on course for a possible clash with the SPD.
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The problem right now is that the baby boomers are retiring, but are still to young to die. In Germany the baby boom was between 1955-69. So with the current retirement age of 67, that means that they started retiring in 2022 and it will end in 2036. With a life expectancy of about 80 in Germany, 2035 is also, when they really start to die. Retirement is really the big cost factor of the welfare state, so this is an actual problem.
However many will choose to retire a bit earlier using savings or some laws, which allow one to retire four years earlier, for lower pensions, if one for fills certain criteria.
This obviously increases costs and hurts the economy as fewer people are working. However the ration will start to improve in a decade or so and there are other reasons for the economy doing poorly, such as the transition to EVs.
However the ration will start to improve in a decade or so
I don't think that's true. Each generation after the boomers has been smaller by about the same factor meaning the ratio between working age and non-working age will stay mostly the same
Nope.
Hm. That doesn't seem to match this graphic. I heard that on the last "Lage der Nation" Podcast they did. I'll see if I can find the source the references there
Edit: found a german source here: https://www.bpb.de/themen/soziale-lage/demografischer-wandel/196643/auswirkungen-des-demografischen-wandels-auf-die-sozialsysteme/
Weil die Geburtenquote hierzulande aber gut vier Jahrzehnte bei rund 1,4 Geburten pro Frau stagnierte, ist inzwischen jede Generation ein Drittel kleiner als noch ihre Elterngeneration.
This says every generation is about 33% smaller than the one before it, which would make the ratio stay pretty unbalanced
Migration. The 20-30 age group is the most likely to move and a bit older is also the normal age to have children. So basically people move to Germany have children and stay. This makes the entire pyramid somewhat stable. Obviously this requires Germany remaining intressting as a migrat destination.
Wouldn't this be reflected in the pyramid I posted above?
Afaict migration helps to stabilize the ratio, but is seemingly not enough improve it. To do that we would need to have more migration than we currently do.
It is and it does. In the 1970s there were about 800k births per year, but the pyramid you posted shows significantly more then 800k population for the 45-55 age group in Germany. The population of Germany is still growing and pretty much every forecast has been predicting a decline for a long time.
