Longer lives have a downside too

The story that Croatia is to spend about R13 billion to curb emigration and reverse low birth rates seems doubly bizarre to us in a developing country in Africa.

For a start, isn’t Croatia – the land of beautiful coastlines and setting for part of the Game of Thrones – the sort of place which people are so eager to see that restrictions on numbers of tourists have had to be introduced in places like the port of Dubrovnik?

People want to leave that country?

Then, how is it that birth rates are so low – fractions of what they are in our country and across our continent – and why is that a bad thing?

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We have way too many people for our limited resources in South Africa, so fewer would certainly help us.

The Croatians believe their nation of just 3.8 million people is facing a demographic collapse because the population is ageing and the workforce won’t be fit and able enough to work – and generate taxes to keep the country going.

That’s the downside of people living longer – and it’s happening mainly to countries in the global north.

Our planet is changing – and it will never be the same again.

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