In this day and age, the life expectancy of retired elderly people has increased compared to the past. This essay will give some harmful effects of this problem and effective solutions to tackle it.
One major problem of the aging population is the financial difficulty that retired people face. As the elderly are often suffer from many chronic diseases such as cancer, and Alzheimer’s, leading to greater demand for healthcare services, caregivers, and medical treatment. However, after retirement, they do not have enough savings or a big pension to pay it for many years. As a result, they might struggle with long-term finance, which is associated with low quality of life and the rate of well-being . Furthermore, an aging population also leads to the lack of workforce, as a significant population of the retirees, reducing the number of active workers. For example, Japan serves as a prominent example of how an aging population can lead to labor shortages, with approximately 30% of the population aged 65 years old, making them need to rely on young immigration to develop their economy.
To counteract these aforementioned problems, improving cost-effective healthcare services for the elderly may be one of the most effective ways. By providing these affordable services, they can regularly check up to avoid illness, mitigating the overload in healthcare systems. In Thailand, for instance, the government provides a Universal Coverage Scheme, which allows citizens, including the elderly, to access healthcare services at a cost of only 30 baht per visit. Another efficient solution that would be implemented by governments is encouraging young immigration. In many developed nations such as Germany and Japan, by implementing immigration policies, enable them to balance the age demographic and replenish the workforce. Thus, these countries have become the most popular choice with many young adults, who contribute significantly to the overall GDP. This is because foreign workers not only boost their productivity but they also expand consumer markets
In conclusion, mental and physical health problems and lack of labor workforce are several primary impacts of the long lifespan. In order to address these issues, promoting affordable health care services and immigration policies should be implemented by the authorities.