Isn't it a classic rate equation? If all young people die immediately, sure, we're in deep shit. But with increasing productivity and improved health care a graceful decrease should be possible.
Increasing productivity in geriatric care basically means robots taking care of people.
I am not saying that it is impossible, but it is definitely hard. Which means psychologically hard, too. Without contact with living people, you are likely to go mad in your bed, even if your physiological needs are taken care of.
Doesn’t this make the problem worse? I.e. longer lifespan for the aging population, and even more demand for healthcare professionals from the limited set of younger workers.
So far, we have increased our lifespans up to 85 or even 90 years, but our healthspans are significantly shorter and those last 10-15 years are spent in state of partial or complete dependency on others.
Unless we can do a lot more in the longevity field and stretch healthspan of old people significantly, we won't be able to meet the total demand for workforce in care.
It is a trade-of, as it always is. If you have fewer people involved, you will have to use more machines.
By the time I am in an old fokes home I don't need somebody to carry me to the toilet, I can just activate my drone and fly there. That should help with the pressure.
From what I learnt when my 90 y.o. grandma was slowly approaching her death, getting to the toilet and wiping afterwards are two significant challenges for someone with bad arthritis. So that drone better be rather versatile - or our medicine a lot better in prevention and treatment of arthritis.
There is some evidence that stem cells can alleviate arthritis, so we may yet benefit from better treatments thereof.
I would assume the drone would move me and then we would finally have a bidet/toilet combo to fix the rest.
I don't mean that drones will be able to fix every problem, just that they will be one component in helping older people stay mobile and reduce the care necessary.