The work that Diego Alburez-Gutierrez published at the beginning of this year in the journal ‘PNAS’ together with colleagues from the University of Amsterdam and Buenos Aires literally ‘broke’ world demographics. The most explicit headline that condensed the work was: “Families are becoming smaller, thinner and longer.” What does it mean? Families are losing weight: women have fewer children, they have fewer cousins and barely any siblings, but more living grandparents and great-grandparents. The family grows in the vertical model, but shrinks in the horizontal one. Its size has not stopped reducing since 1950 and will continue to do so strongly in the projection made until the end of the century, in 2095. Using data from a thousand kinship histories from a hundred countries, a key conclusion he drew was that in 1950 an average woman, By the time he reached 65, he had 41 living relatives; by 2095, that number drops to 25 family members, a 38% reduction. The analysis inferred that the extension of this phenomenon is already planetary. An anthropologist and demographer by training, this Guatemalan stacks up mathematical models in his office in Rostock (Germany), where he has been working for five years as head of the Kinship Inequalities group at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR). These statistics correspond, he adds, to the second part of a generational portrait that promises new journalistic headlines and a deeper reflection on the role of older people. Have you already recovered from the ‘boom’ that came with the publication in ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)’? The truth is that it has been motivating. Our work had some implications for society and the Administration and we have seen that there was a lot of interest in the topic. Now we want to see family structures in the future, but adding more detail: one of the most interesting topics is how the educational level that relatives have in the countries influences and how that educational level will change in the future. I think the clearest example is that of grandparents: their education depends on the socioeconomic situation at the time they worked. In some way, the current education of grandparents depends on the past and this is going to change a lot in the future. We hope that children will have more and more living grandparents and also that those grandparents will have achieved a higher educational level. We speak at a global level, in the world. This has great implications: they will provide less physical and less instrumental support, but more advice, for example on economic issues, pension decisions, etc. And they will be working until an older age, developing even more studies. Standard Related News No This is the population resident in Spain who was born abroad: number of people according to their country of origin. When do you plan to publish it? A At the end of this year we will have a version of the study available. What is the specific projection for Spain? The average number of great-grandparents for a newborn in Spain over time has been three in 1950-55, 3.3 in 1975-1980, currently there are four and will be 4.8 in 2095. In North America and Europe, where families are already small, the changes are less abrupt. In Spain, in 1950 a 65-year-old woman who was entering her retirement period had about 20 living relatives, double the number she will have in 2095, which will be 12. What changes should this imply? It is not just that the number of relatives change, but the age gap between people and their relatives will also increase considerably. This means that there is also aging within the families themselves, we no longer have as many cousins, but rather we have more grandparents and grandchildren alive at the same time. Something we have emphasized is in the planning of the Public Administration as a result of this, in the need to invest in a social support system. What I think can no longer be done is to assume that relative support will continue in the future in the same way it has existed until now. Families are not going to be just blood ties because there are simply fewer biological relatives. We are not considering friends or in-laws of the couple. Relatives won’t be able to take care of us, there will be other people. And is the Administration listening, does it know that it has to change the care system based primarily on family members? We have had many meetings with politicians, and for example in my country, Guatemala, also for obvious cultural reasons as in Spain, care is followed trusting the family. We need to invest in social protection systems and the fact that families are longer, with more grandparents, does not mean that there will be a greater number of caregivers, because perhaps those caregivers will also need care. It will be the case that the elderly take care of their parents and their grandchild. In addition to the pressure on the ‘sandwich generation’, women in the 35-50 year old segment who support the role of caregivers of the minors and elders of the house. We should ensure that the systems that exist are strengthened. There are going to be many people in need of care and few caregivers. Of course, we know that, but the challenges are greater due to the aging population. Generally we assume that care will continue within families and it is not something we can take for granted. In Spain the birth rate and the fertility rate are at historic lows, but you maintain that this is no longer going up. something that can be taken from this research, rather than an alarmist message about fertility or that society is going to collapse. The evidence shows that there is very little that can be done to increase these fertility data, such as programs and incentives to promote birth rates. There is no measure that works. No matter how many benefits are given to mothers, they will not have more children? It is very important that these benefits exist, support must be provided to fathers, but it is not enough. There are structural factors (the labor market, the housing market and the current demands and pressure on parents). The welfare system is super important, but you have to be realistic with the fact that there is no certainty that fertility will increase. The best example is the Nordic countries, with a higher fertility than the rest of the countries in Europe, linked to their benefit system. But that relationship has collapsed in recent years. You have thoroughly studied the demographic impact of armed conflicts. Right now we have two very close: Ukraine and Gaza. What will that impact be like? The case of Ukraine is very particular and unprecedented, furthermore, due to the issue of population aging. It is something that has not been given attention: the aging of the population was already very advanced, with low fertility in the country for a long time. In the country right now there are many people in advanced ages, few in young ages and if the effect of war is added, given that the people who die from the conflict, the populations tend to age even more. We add this fact to a population that was already aging. Zelensky, in fact, increased the age of recruitment because there were no longer enough young men, this is something that has not been seen before and that if we see it from a purely demographic and dependency point of view, (which is the relationship of people over 65 years old compared to people who are of working age, because it is a measure of how much pressure there is to provide for older people) these dependency ratios are going to skyrocket in Ukraine in the coming decades as an impact of the conflict. There is a specific study in which our group observed this and I believe that in addition to the destruction of family and economic structures that war entails, there will also be an acceleration of aging. Likewise, there will also be consequences in the marriage market because young men are dying and women not so much: what we see in all conflicts is that when they end there are more women looking for partners than men potentially to be a partner. This is something that also entails other challenges. Standard Related News Yes To denounce or remain silent, the difficult balance of the Pope on the world geopolitical board Javier Martínez-Brocal | Correspondent in The Vatican report Yes The more than 200 plans that death made in DANA Chapu ApaolazaOn the other hand, apart from the purely issue of dependency, we then have the issue of forced displacement. It has been seen in Europe with displaced people from Ukraine, and now it will be seen more in Lebanon than in Gaza, because immigration is restricted here, and it is something that affects social and economic dynamics, as well. And the third demographic leg (they are fertility, immigration and mortality, as is known): the impact of the conflict on fertility remains to be seen. The ‘baby boom’ occurred after World War II and it is not known if it is something that could happen again in these territories. With Palestine, it has been documented in previous episodes of conflict that fertility is higher than would be expected, because it responds to a communal intention to increase the number of the population since a threat to the existence of the group is perceived.
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