Demographic Crisis:
Elimination of the Consequences not the Causes

The World Economic Forum (WEF) predicts a global crisis with retirement.

In the world the deficit of retirement savings by 2050 will reach 428 trillion dollars. This is five times higher than the current level of the world’s annual GDP. The report of the WEF indicates that the coming crisis is associated with an increase in life expectancy and low productivity of investment of pension funds. The increase in the retirement age in many countries seems inevitable, the report says. In this regard, the WEF experts recommended that world leaders address the problem as soon as possible.

According to the WEF, the number of people over 65 will increase from 600 million now to 2.1 billion people in 2050. By 2066, 25% of the world’s population will be more than 65 years old. (Source: zn.ua)

The UN estimated that the world’s population aged 60 years or over was 600 million people in 2000, almost three times the size of this age group in 1950 (205 million people). In 2009, it exceeded 737 million people, and by 2050 will be more than 2 billion people, once again tripling for a period of 50 years.

Aging of society is a serious economic problem. According to the UN forecasts, by 2050, 22% of the world population will be pensioners, and in developed countries for every working citizen will be a pensioner.

State officials and researchers of this problem name the correct cause of this problem – reduction of the birth rate below the level of simple reproduction. However, the study of measures taken to combat this phenomenon indicates that there is no complete and comprehensive understanding of the essence of this cause. In fact, the entire Western world, which stands with its own words in the forefront of those struggling with this problem, is trying to fight only the consequences and not with the sounded reason.

This is evident in view of the following points:

1. The generally accepted definition of the demographic crisis in the West

“The demographic crisis is a sharp change in the population. The demographic crisis can be understood as a population decline, and overpopulation of territories.
In the first case, this is a situation that develops in a state (country) or region, when the birth rate falls below the level of simple reproduction of the population, and also below the death rate.

In case of overpopulation, the demographic crisis is the inability of the territory to provide its inhabitants with vital resources”.

In fact, the real demographic crisis is only the first – the aging of the nation and as a result, the above-mentioned crisis with pensions.

The second kind of demographic crisis, in fact, is a positive phenomenon. The consideration of overpopulation as a threat comes from an incorrect definition of the economic problem in capitalism. According to capitalism, the economic problem lies in the limited resources necessary for the production of goods and services against the backdrop of unlimited needs for them. The cause of the outbreak of poverty in the modern world lies not in a large number of the world’s population, but in the wrong distribution of goods and services, as enshrined in the Islamic economic system.

In capitalist countries, overpopulation of the planet is viewed as a threat. Therefore, on the part of various specialized international organizations the so-called programs to limit the birth rate are promoted.

The mere fact of considering excessive birth rate as a problem is a clear sign of a lack of understanding of the true cause of the problem of the aging of nations.

2. Attempts to find a solution of this problem in secondary branches.

Researchers, relevant organizations and government officials are trying to find an explanation and solution of this problem in phenomena that have little to do with its essence. It has often been said about the following reasons and measures to curb this problem: the problem of increasing the average life expectancy, the need to increase the tax and pension burden, the low productivity of investment of pension funds, the need to increase the age of “active ageing” and the introduction of the remote forms of employment for the elderly, the spread of such diseases as cancer and HIV, the impact of environmental pollution, etc.

All of the above is a consequence in the best case.

3. Unwillingness to discuss the real cause of demographic problems.

As it was said above, despite the fact that the main reason – the decrease in the birth rate – is named for sure, no one wants to solve this problem in an effective way.

And this is due to the fact that in practice, the increase in the birth rate in the West is possible only by abandoning the idols of the modern democratic world.

These are such concepts as equality of the sexes, freedom of the individual, propagation of the consumer lifestyle.

It is these concepts that are an insurmountable obstacle to the solution of the problem of lowering the birth rate. After all, the utopian concept of gender equality has deprived women and families in the West of a natural desire to have a healthy numerous offspring. Freedom of the individual and consumerism corrupt the younger generation and make them incapable of creating strong families that are the cell of any society.

Unlike the Western world, in the Islamic world there is no problem of the so-called retirement age, because the Prophet (saw) encouraged large families. As a consequence, there is no problem of pensioners. Because half a dozen children of any elderly parents easily provide them, often without even requiring the need for state assistance.

A Muslim woman who has the right to work in Islam has never felt the need to work, because by Islam her husband is obliged to support her and her children. If she still works, then her salary is her property, which she does not have to spend on the family and husband can not force her to it. That is why the level of employment of women in the Islamic world is extremely low. This is by no means connected with the infringement of women, as Islamophobes try to show.

Despite the absence of the Islamic form of government of the Khilafah "Caliphate" (Caliphate) in modern Muslim countries, the propaganda of individual liberty and the consumer lifestyle is negligible and does not go beyond the capitals of Muslim countries.

These two factors together form the basis of the strong, large families in Muslim peoples.

To solve the demographic problem, modern Europe needs nothing less than a rejection of capitalism, which is the real reason for the impossibility of solving this problem today. It is the rejection of the capitalist ideology that will allow Europe to raise the birth rate when the number of children in European families reached 6-7 children, as it was just recently.

In conclusion, I would like to mention the so-called “Japanese economic miracle”, which the West sets as an example for developing countries and, in particular, for Muslim countries.

Muslim countries do not need such a “capitalist miracle”, or rather, “capitalist monster”, which resulted in the fact that today (data for 2009) in Japan, the share of the population of 60 years and over is 29.7% while in the rest world it is 10.8% on average.

This is the reality of capitalism, where a glossy, lustrous picture is achieved through crushing attacks on the foundations of society, family and humanity. The abolition of spiritual, moral and human values is the hallmark of modern capitalism, which it is trying to impose on the whole world.

How wonderful are the following words of Allah Almighty, which exactly describe the position of today’s the so-called “developed” world and its convulsive attempts to curb the demographic crisis:

(فَإِمَّا يَأْتِيَنَّكُم مِّنِّي هُدًى فَمَنِ اتَّبَعَ هُدَايَ فَلَا يَضِلُّ وَلَا يَشْقَى * وَمَنْ أَعْرَضَ عَن ذِكْرِي فَإِنَّ لَهُ مَعِيشَةً ضَنكًا وَنَحْشُرُهُ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ أَعْمَى)

“And if there should come to you guidance from Me - then whoever follows My guidance will neither go astray [in the world] nor suffer [in the Hereafter]. And whoever turns away from My remembrance - indeed, he will have a depressed life, and We will gather him on the Day of Resurrection blind”. [Taha: 123-124]

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Fazyl Amzaev
Head of the Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir in Ukraine