Frank-Walter Steinmeier Quotes

Hong Kong needs population growth to cope with a rapidly ageing population.

The changes taking place in the age structure of the countries around the world are stunning.

The biggest drag on global growth in the coming decade will be demographics in the developed world.

Our population is headed for a stable plateau, which means an aging population.

I think ageing demographics is a bigger issue in China than people think. And the problems it creates should be become evident as early as 2016.

By the year 2020, the year of perfect vision, the old will outnumber the young.

Demography drives the economy.

If fertility drops much below 2.1 babies per woman, the population will shrink unless it is offset by higher immigration. For this reason, a demographic cloud hangs over China. It may be the first country to grow old before it grows rich. ... Its fertility rate is below two and its working-age population will start to decline around 2015.

The aging and declining population will have far-reaching impacts. Declining fertility rates will possibly increase immigration. The structure of family and society will inevitably change.

Demography is changing us as we are older societies, we're living longer. How the generations balance each other out, how that affects education and health care.

Over time, the welfare state has become dysfunctional in a surprising way. But in a way it became a victim of its own success: It became so successful at prolonging life, that it becomes financially unsustainable, unless you make major changes to things like retirement ages.

The debate around the ageing population should, in my view, focus much more on how we grow the active, working population.

The life expectancy is much longer today than it was when Social Security was created.

The point of our demographics is that we're not having as many children and the population is stagnant, if not declining. So without immigration, we're not going to have the population.

The reality is that the workforce relative to the number of people retired has shrunk and today in America there are only 3.3 working Americans paying payroll taxes to support each individual currently retired and collecting Social Security taxes.

If Japanese cannot have new babies quick enough, then the government should start importing workers faster.

We obviously have to honor the commitments that have been made to the people who are already retired or near the retirement age. But we need to tell the truth about the fact that when we set the retirement age at age 65 in America, life expectancy was only 62.

This is a very difficult question. If you take a look at the aging population and demographics, we are going to have a big increase in the number of health care jobs needed in the state and in the country.

Most people understand life expectancy has changed since Social Security started in 1937 when folks lived to be 59 years old. Today, they live to be 77 years old.

Low interest rates are usually attributed to low inflation, weak economic growth and super easy monetary policy. But there's another deep-seated factor that doesn't get much attention: demographics.

If there are healthy - and growing - numbers of people working and paying taxes, we are better able to pay the costs of people living longer.

While prosperity and longevity arrive together, they cannot be treated the same. With greater wealth, people in Asia may not have to work as many hours as they do now. But living longer means they will have to work more years, not fewer.

Along with issues like global warming, I think a problem with the world today is population decline.

Well, the big elephant in the whole system is the baby boomer generation that marches through like a herd of elephants. And we begin to retire in 2008.

I think America may be growing up and accepting the fact that the bulk of life exists beyond 50. Because demographically... the vast population is over 50.