Rise of the one child family. Who will fund the pensions black hole?

drc

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1165371/The-rise-little-emperor-How-child-family-soon-majority.html

"Robert Whelan, of the Civitas think tank, said: 'People haven't changed their idea of what is an ideal family size. There is no evidence that people want just one child. But there is an economic imperative.'
He added: 'The only people who can afford large families are the small numbers of the wealthy, to whom cost doesn't matter, and the larger number of those who depend on welfare, to whom cost doesn't matter because the state pays.'"

Generali

The pensions black hole won't be funded - there was a chance it could be before the current Government got in.

Mr Brown has destroyed the solvency of the pension systems, public and private, in the UK.

amcluesent

I'm relying on the Religion of Peace as their numbers are growing at 10 times the rate of the rest of the UK population. I know they'll want to do everything they can to help out the country that gave them all asylum when they were 'seekers'.

Generali

amcluesent wrote: »

I'm relying on the Religion of Peace as their numbers are growing at 10 times the rate of the rest of the UK population. I know they'll want to do everything they can to help out the country that gave them all asylum when they were 'seekers'.

Terrorists being persuaded to blow up old people would be a way to solve the Pensions Crisis(TM). I think that we should encourage Isle of Wight separatists to do this.

CLAPTON

Whether pension funds are fully funded or not is a political rather than an economic issue.

Basically the people who work at any given time have to support all the non workers i.e. children, retired, unemployed

If pensions are fully funded then for any given average pension, workers have to produce sufficient to pay dividends to support the pension industry so they can pay the pensioners.
If pensions are unfunded then workers have to pay taxes to pay the pensioner.

If pensioners receive the same total incomes in both scenerios then the workers have to be deprived of some of the fruits of their labout either via profits or via taxes... economically it makes no difference.

Now it can be agrued that funded schemes provide money for productive investment.. but that is another story.

ALIBOBSY

This must have some big regional variation as the talk on the playground last week was how many bigger families there are around here. I am pregnant with no4 and know 2 others currently pregnant with no 4 as well.
I know loads of mums with 2 and 3 kids. Out of the parents I know through school and church(2 age groups for each of my eldest 2) I only know one who is a single child family, and they wanted more but had fertillity problems and were just glad when IVF produced the lovely little girl they have.
Mind you I live in a pretty rural area outside a small town in the northwest. The house prices never hit the levels they did elsewhere. We bought a big 3 bed semi with decent garden front and back for £44,950 in 99. At the peak these were only going for around £170k and now seem to be around 90-100k. So it is entirely possible for mums around here to only need to work part time or even be a SAHM. So perhaps the article is right in some areas big mortgages have stopped people having the families they may have wanted had finances allowed.
This may mean the recession is good news for pensions, lower house prices leads to lower mortgages so less pressure for both partners to work full time. Means people can choose how many kids they may (or may not) want to have.

Anyway we need all the kids to help look after all the veggies/chickens/allotments we will all have to have as we all end up having to go old style cos of the recession rofl.

ali x

lostinrates

If we accept, as some of us do, that there are too many people in the world, then we have to also accept at some point in time that changing this is going to have consequences on things, including pensions. I don't see any way round that. Personally, as much as I recognise the pain it will cause everyone, I can't help but think its the lesser of the two evils. But I'd be happy and relieved if there is a flaw in my understanding.

FungusFighter

lostinrates wrote: »

If we accept, as some of us do, that there are too many people in the world, then we have to also accept at some point in time that changing this is going to have consequences on things, including pensions. I don't see any way round that. Personally, as much as I recognise the pain it will cause everyone, I can't help but think its the lesser of the two evils. But I'd be happy and relieved if there is a flaw in my understanding.

Well you can be happy and relieved then

bristol_pilot

I frankly don't believe that there will ever be a shortage of workers in the UK, only a shortage of work. About 4 million unemployed has been endemic for a hundred years, although there have been various attempts to disguise the numbers.

michaels

How about all the Bangladeshis once they have to move due to the rising sea levels as a result of global warming from our carbon emissions?

PasturesNew

You can't fund the theoretical pensions balckhole by producing more kids ... you're just creating a big ponzi scheme as the next lot require more "new joiners"... where would it end?