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Baby boom generation starting to retire in or around 2030

BailMeOut

In less than 10 years we will see a dramatic increase in the number of people retiring which is something I do not think is discussed enough. I assume government agencies are aware of this looming burden on society in terms of state and public service pensions as well as a giant number of people starting to get older at the same time and its strain on health care. It's not uniquely an Irish issue as the USA and the UK have similar birth trends from this time. It's also a generation that has accumulated a lot of wealth so will younger people who will be running the country be resentful paying for this generation and will we see calls to tax them (or cut benefits) and get them to help finance their own golden years?

Are we ready as surely this is a crisis that we are walking into which will last at least 20+ years as that generation grows old and eventually dies? Or maybe it will be ok and I should not be worried about this?!

What are your thoughts on this? I think it is a future pending economic and societal problem in the making as we need to start planning for it asap.

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machiavellianme

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017285#Comment_122017285

So what? Your response refers to a generation, the post I was responding to references a particular year as being a boom. But their maths for determining the ages of people in that year let's their argument down.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122014352#Comment_122014352

That's because the term baby boomers is meaningless in Ireland so of course it doesn't correspond to anything real. I can't understand why people even do that. Seems like they want to create identity groups to pit against each other or something.

There were no masses of conscripted soldiers coming back after the war to make all these babies, the economy in Ireland had no post war boom, and in fact remained in the doldrums until the mid eighties. It's the opposite really: emigration was significant among Irish people the same age as baby boomers in the US and UK, because their economies were doing well.

The nearest Irish equivalent to the privileged baby boomers is probably those who profited from the (rather short lived) Celtic tiger days. They're a LOT younger.

ongarite

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017285#Comment_122017285

True but the term is an American construct & has meaning for it's population curve & opportunity that this cohort had with "booming" economy, cheap housing & well paid white collar jobs.

The point monkeybutter makes, which I agree with, is that it has no relevance in Ireland.

Irish "boomers" you could argue we're born 1970-79 with Celtic Tiger kicking into gear when they left school, university; together with cheap housing & falling interest rates.

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122015680#Comment_122015680

Ah to be young again 😀

And you can now see why a certain sector of society are a tad uncomfortable with the prospect of legally assisted dying 🤪

cdeb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017220#Comment_122017220

Have you a point? I may have missed it.

20silkcut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017285#Comment_122017285

These generation labels did not exist 15/20 years ago. I think they are a divide and conquer concoction to attack social cohesion.
I might have heard of Generation X but not in the context it’s used today. But definitely never heard of baby boomer or millennial or silent generation. It’s all bullshit to pit people against each other.
The wealthiest families I know are the ones who work together and pull together inter generationally.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122015685#Comment_122015685

I'd really like to know when "homes and secure jobs" were a basic that everyone had? Maybe for a period of about 5 years that I missed out on because I had already left the country by then - for economic reasons.

And I'm still working, and will be retiring at about 2030, so I'm right in the target group the OP thinks are too entitled. Doesn't feel entitled from where I'm sitting.

TheIrishGrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017531#Comment_122017531

Oh be quiet you, you self-entitled burden on society. 😀

Owning you own home was NEVER a basic

Secure job was NEVER a basic.

I worked since 16. From 22 to 27 I shared a house with three others. Had my first holiday abroad at 28 and scrimped and saved (and, I will admit, there was a certain amount of luck/good timing) to buy my house. Next 5 years also sharing my house with two others.

It was most certainly not considered a basic assumption

I have have had 4 jobs and do not assume that my current job cannot go elsewhere at some stage (two of my previous jobs moved abroad)

(And yes, I do realise that sounded like that Monty Python sketch).

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017531#Comment_122017531

I'd like to know why you think that rents haven't skyrocketed, wages haven't stagnated, and that job security hasn't decreased.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017501#Comment_122017501

They're not. They're perfectly legitimate.

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017501#Comment_122017501

yes they did- I learned these terms in the 1980s- subsequent generations have been added since

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017698#Comment_122017698

Wow. Did I say any of that?

Why no. No I didn’t.

I said a different thing.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017776#Comment_122017776

And I never said that everyone in the boomer demographic had a house and a secure job.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017778#Comment_122017778

turning former basics such as homes and secure jobs into luxuries

You said they were “former basics”. What do you understand by that, if not that everyone could expect to have ready access to them?

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017784#Comment_122017784

I'm not interested in silly games. Let's just leave it.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017805#Comment_122017805

If you want, but my point was not a "silly game", even if yours was.

My very serious point is that it's inappropriate and socially divisive to try to apply a US understanding of the world to other countries, specifically Ireland. We didn't have a baby boom after the war, and young adults in the 60s, 70s and 80s never had an easy time regarding housing or jobs - and those few who may have done were helped by the fact that mass emigration took a lot of pressure off the market for those who were able to stay.

So this "Oh you baby boomers had it so easy compared to us" sh1te is not only divisive, it's factually incorrect.

I graduated in the first year that the number of people arriving in the country finally overtook the number emigrating. I was one of those who left. If the same numbers were emigrating today, housing would no doubt be a lot more affordable. I don't think that makes "housing and stable jobs were a basic back then" a fair conclusion.

That's all I had to say about it, so I'm happy to leave it at that - but not to pretend that I was playing a silly game.

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122015755#Comment_122015755

Actually nope. Though the terms are certainly American, the Irish population growth echoed the US in rapidly climbing Post WW2. Peaking in 1965(the US peaked circa 1960) and falling off cliff after that(with a leveling off circa 1990-2010). The birthrate in 1980 was very much on the downward slope. The US on the other hand had a more level curve. IE more Gen X etc were born as a percentage of population.

20silkcut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017772#Comment_122017772

not in Irish media. Not using those de lineations. There was generational differences mostly defined by those who lived through and fought in the war of independence civil war etc and those that came after who came of age in the 60’s/70’s. And then the current post Catholic generation. Boomers , millennials etc are false American media constructs in the Irish context. Invented for the purpose of antagonism over there and exported to here.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017956#Comment_122017956

That's a single factor, fertility, which dropped in the 70s as contraception became available in Ireland.

That graph doesn't say anything about numbers of adults looking for work and housing - because Ireland, unlike America, had high levels of emigration right up to the 80s. The baby boomer generation was a different thing entirely, about the economy as much as about birth levels.

Even when you compare that single criterion, they're not that similar:

Contraception happened later in Ireland and had an even bigger effect. Related to the fact that the economy was weaker and people were less sure of being able to look after their children no doubt.

Galwayguy35

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122014424#Comment_122014424

Learn something new every day it seems.

Never realised I was a Gen X man.

Kurooi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122014456#Comment_122014456

Some work 50 years straight so others don't work a day.

And you want to tap them on the shoulder, tell them they're privileged, and they should put up with more.

cdeb

Again not really sure what your point is, and how it relates to my post?

Wibbs

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122018019#Comment_122018019

The peak was 1965 and dropped rapidly after that. Contraception in Ireland was beyond difficult to secure in the 60's and 70's. The Family Planning act which essentially limited contraception to married people with a doctor's nod and prescription didn't come along until 1980. It was the mid 80's before condoms could be had without prescription and a few years after that in any numbers. It was 1992 before we got contraception law that brought us up to most European standards. There were certainly factors in play concerning our dropping birthrates, but contraception, at least in the 60's and 70's would have been way down the list.

BailMeOut

There was a boom in births in 1965 which is the point of this thread . There was another boom in the 80s and again in 2007. There is a chart in the OPs post showing this boom. What you might want to call this boom is up to you but 1965 was a peak year for births in Ireland and these folks will be retiring very soon

Oscar_Madison

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017970#Comment_122017970

yes in Irish media

BailMeOut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122016138#Comment_122016138

You have and nobody would argue against what you are saying however you have no guarantees that future generations will not move the goal posts if society cannot afford to pay your state benefits. Something might have to give which could be moving the age when people can retire, cut pension payments, tax younger people more to pay for older people's pensions or cut services. (I used a lot of mights and coulds here!)

purplepanda

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122014424#Comment_122014424

This is just American crap imported to Western European nations who actually have different cycles of births over the periods above. None of the above groupings make sense in an Irish, British or any neighbouring nations demographic context.

There was no Baby boom until the '60's in Ireland or nor Britain, & I would suggest most of Western Europe, due to massive reconstruction after WW2, continued recession & rationing, rebuilding of infrastructure, industrial bases, housing & modernisation.

Comparing Western Europe demographics to the late WW2 period & booming post war economy of the richest country in history is nothing but a fallacy, promoted by those that are continually brainwashed by America media.

ancapailldorcha

There was a baby boom. It's objective fact. I'm baffled that some people have to dismiss everyone who disagrees as "brainwashed by American media".

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122019704#Comment_122019704

As pointed out every time, Ireland did not experience a baby boom in the late 40s, 50s.

hotmail.com

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122017956#Comment_122017956

Ireland's population fell in the 1950s. There is no US comparison. Generation X is an American cultural term for American people and their experiences. Irish people have completely different upbringing and experiences and so it seems bizarre to link Irish people with these American labels.