In many parts of the world, the proportion of older people is increasing. Do the advantages of this trend outweigh the disadvantages for society?Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Nowadays, elderly people are surviving more because of better healthcare facilities, which has raised their ratio in the population. While some argue that this has certain benefits, others feel that this poses a challenge. I completely disagree that the advantages of the aging population have outstrap the disadvantages.
Elderly people are also providing various advantages. One of the most important factors is getting knowledge about the earliest times, knowing about the past experiences of our elders. Observing a familiar touch and understanding the cultural ethics and traditional values from older people. They can take the role of affording mentorship to the future generation.
However, one of the significant disadvantages of the aging problem is the burden on the government of improving medical and healthcare facilities. As aged people require more medical attention and support service, as their aging factor tends to reflect the requirement of assistance. This mandates an increment in public spendings which directly impacts the government, facing higher expenditure providing healthcare facilities and extra allowance to elderly people which directly impacts the income of common people as it leads to higher taxes.
Moreover, this composition is impacting economic growth because the shrinking young population is a major challenge when it comes to availability of able-bodied skilled workers who can contribute to strategic sectors and industries, impacting economic productivity. To exemplify, countries like the UK, Canada and USA are facing scarcity of skilled workers due to the absence of young people. Consequently they are forced to import skills from other parts of the world through skilled migration programmes.
In hindsight, aging populations have become a challenge, owing to rising costs of healthcare and support, and absence of necessary skills to contribute to economic progress,and thus the resulting drawbacks clearly exceed benefits.
