Baby boom generation starting to retire in or around 2030

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.

Americans love their labels.

I think most Irish people stick with young, middle aged and old. Or a person "in their 50s" etc.

Off topic:

Sure, but designating people by age like that can be a whole different minefield. Cultural differences come into play as well. I remember talking to a few Spanish women in their thirties/forties. Dunno how the subject of age came up but I casually mentioned 60s being elderly (it wasn’t about anyone specific); well, they nearly ate me alive. It seems to me that in Spanish culture being called old or elderly is akin to an insult. In my own culture, it’s just a designation of age, and perhaps “old” does start earlier in my culture than in theirs. And nobody gets offended being called it (if they really are old).

I’m just reminded now of a friend who recently turned 60 and got into a funk about it. To me, that’s “Does not compute”. I would celebrate it! (as I did my 50th very recently) I mean, a little imagination in life always helps; you could have been dead from drugs, cancer or in a car crash by now - instead you’ve made it to 60! So celebrate you’re still here, living in cushy circumstances compared to the majority of the world’s population, and with a nice chance of some more good years ahead. Woohoooo 💃🏻🕺

Yeah……… being technical about it is perhaps the best way to go (“he’s in his 60’s”).

True - I wouldn’t call anyone old to their face, I do understand it can be a sensitive thing with some people. But the reason I was flummoxed with the Spanish women there is because I didn’t actually designate anyone in particular as old, it was just a general remark AFAIR. I got the feeling almost like they took umbrage on behalf of their parents or something. 🤷‍♀️

The term "boomer" is incredibly valuable because whenever you see someone using it to talk about Irish people, you instantly know they haven't the first club about history, politics or economics and you can safely disregard everything that follows.

Anyone born in Ireland during the "baby boom" years in the USA had to put up with poverty, repression and lack of opportunities that no-one born here after 1990 could even vaguely comprehend now.

The point about "baby boomers" is that there was, well, a baby boom in the western world — a large rise in the birthrate, sustained for about 20 years. This generation has always been larger both that the generation that came before it (their parents) and the generation that came after it (their children). The result is that, by sheer weight of numbers, they have been relatively influential — first economically, when they were teenagers and young adults; then politically, as voters; and eventually both politically and economically, as they reached the top of their professions and formed the demographic from which political, economic and cultural leadership is drawn. This would be when they were in their fifties.

If we accept the conventional understanding — baby boomers are those born between 1945 and 1965, more or less — then the baby boom generation is now aged between 59 and 79. Well over half of them have already retired and most of the rest will, in the next few years. Their cultural and economic signficance is now declining, which is a new experience for most of them, and their political significance is also starting to decline, though that will be a slower process.

Expect stresses and strains to result. For example, the housing affordability crisis that plagues much of the western world is the flip side of the house price inflation which has so massively benefited baby boomer homeowners. Its very hard to see how the problem can be addressed without some detriment to baby boomers but, as their economic and political influence declines, they will be less and less able to resist that. They now have the problem that there is not just one but two generations below them who are adult and politically active; on issues where the interests of both Gen X and Millenials align — and there are many — the baby boomer are massively outnumbered, and they can no longer rely on their dominination of the political and economic establishments to protect their interests.

Yes, lets just leave it.

The obvious, though likely incredibly unpopular, solution to paying for the care of a growing elderly demographic is an increase in wealth (i.e. property) and inheritance tax.

there are, there was a baby boom recently enough as they all had kids

What should happen is that form the age of 18 everyone should pay something like the USC but towards their old age care.

Then you tax inheritance heavily and you ring fence that money for end of life care too. This should be enough to take care of those who will not have any assets on death to collect tax from too. You tax the inheritors not the people who worked for those things that they build up over a lifetime of work.

Also increasing the retirement age will work if they ever do it. But it needs to be done in a manner which honors the contract that people approaching retirement have had since they started paying tax.

10 years from current retirement age 66 - increase the retirement age by one year.

20 years from retirement - increase it by 2 years.

And so on every 10 years back add one year to the retirement age, even for people born in the future. eg someone born in 2034 will have a retirement age of 73 or so. Go in 2 year increments if that ever looks like it is lagging behind.

That way retirement age increases as each new generation is born, so there can be no hard feelings that you worked all your life planning to retire at a certain age and then the moved the goal posts on you.

But you need to build proper retirement facilities so that people who have houses can trade down to pay without impacting their quality of life and feel part of a community and not like people thrown on the scrap heap, which sadly it seems like younger generations want for old people. They seem to want to get all the old people assets given to them for very little in return and then just dump them on the scrap heap.

the problem with this is people only talk about it, never do anything about it

why not start a business where you go off build a load of retirement villages for old people

But Ireland did not experience a baby boom in this period. The population fell.

So when you talk about an accepted convention, have you ever tried to look into Irish history and question accepted conventions.

Complaining about boomer title but then saying you're Generation X.

What happened to saying I'm in my 40s or I'm in my 50s.

Looking back on demographic pyramid charts for the US and Ireland it does seem like there are correlations, like in 1970 around 45% of the population of the USA was under the age 25 but twenty years later in 1990 that had decreased to around 35%.

Ireland was around 45% under the age 25 in 1990 and like the US was down around 35% too twenty years later in 2010.

I don't think using the US boomer dynamic as a starting point for discussing Irish demographics is helpful, I think we have a very different economy to the boomer economy of the US in the 1970s.

Having said that the post WWII population boom did produce family sizes that were the exception rather the norm when matched against longer trends. The industrial nations saw a massive upswing in the 19th century to the point where by 1900 a quarter of humanity lived in Europe, whereas now I believe that figure is around 8 or 9% and falling.

Basically the demographic dynamics of one economy does not necessarily match every other situation as there can be many moving parts.

Yes, tax the inheritors who do nothing to get the money, not the people who put their blood, sweat and tears into building their worldly possessions. Leave the people be who earned it, let them enjoy it and take it off those who had it left to them where the expectation of it just makes them demanding and lazy.

not sure where you are getting your terminology from but the baby boomers in conventional lingo ended in 1964z. It is Gen-X which will begin to retired in substantial numbers by 2030 when the youngest will be 66.