The forecasts indicate that the so-called Boomer generation will revolutionize the population pyramid. Due to the prolongation of life expectancy, high birth rates between 1949-1968 point to round the top of the pyramid in the coming years. About a month ago the United Nations (UN) published the World Social Report. This document reflects the data that extrapolate to the world the reality of the population dynamics that we see around us. Nothing new. He says that in the next three decades, among other things, the number of older people (over 65) will double, from 761 million in 2021 to 1.6 billion in 2050. As expected, the regions that will be the first in this process will be Australia and New Zealand, Europe and North America, and East and Southeast Asia. In Africa and Western Asia, the proportion of young people will still be higher by the end of this century.

If we look at our immediate context, it is known that this forecast will increase, among others, the challenges related to health and/or care. Somehow, an increase in economic activities is expected to respond to the needs and motivations of the elderly and the needs of their families and caregivers, known as silver economy or silver economy. Many talk about the need for entrepreneurship to adapt to these new models of the future. Get good market research around these new customers and then define and implement new business models. The new demographic context certainly requires a transformation of the economy: our home and change in household management. Both private and public sectors.

However, civility and capital law often do not coincide. According to the abovementioned UN report, there is concern about the sustainability of public spending in territories where the process of population domination is advanced, especially in those related to health and pensions. Kuriously, among the eleven proposals relating to pensions, together with the consolidation of tax-financed pension schemes, stresses the need to promote private savings.

From the conclusions I wanted to draw from the report, I have two thoughts. The first, once again, is to see where the focus of concern is on all that public spending entails. The issue of pensions is never treated like other expenses, and the question of sustainability is fully standardised. Moreover, we accept it. And the second is to equate as a response to this particular issue the possible alternatives both public and private. I have doubts that the protection of the fundamental rights of the elderly is one of the priorities of private banks. Subjecting this protection to the financial market can be dangerous.

As economist Juan Torres says, the market itself is, in most cases, responsible for increasing inequalities between rich and poor. As the economist Miren Etxezarreta clearly explains, pensions should be equated with other social rights and assume the country’s budgets. I have no doubt: the generation of boomer, caretaker, financial support, tacit staff and victors of the rights that we have today, that this society has treated several times as client, expense, obstacle or impediment. It is not hanging the silver medal, but gold.