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Cate Blanchett, Jennifer Lopez, Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jennifer Aniston might prefer you not to mention it. Each marks her 40th birthday in 2009. As they blow out their candles they might consider this demographic detail: the median age in the seven big, rich democracies (the G7) will also pass 40 in the coming year.

The rich world is greying fast. Germans, Italians and Japanese are already, on average, well into their 40s. In 2009 the British, French and Canadians will join them. By one estimate the median age of west Europeans is rising by an average of two days with each passing week. It will carry on doing so for at least another couple of decades. In the G7 only Americans remain relatively young, with a median age in 2009 of just 36.4 years, thanks to a steady influx of sprightly Mexicans.

Our workforces will shrivel, almost certainly beginning in 2009

Does this matter? Ms Blanchett and co will claim that their best work lies ahead of them, darlings. And there is plenty of advice for individuals on how to age gracefully. As long ago as the 1930s an American, Walter B. Pitkin, wrote a bestselling self-help guide that coined a familiar phrase: “Life Begins at Forty”. He decried “the cynical youth who looks upon forty as a living death”.

So much for individuals. For societies there are some benefits of ageing: longer life and better health are fine in themselves, and they are linked with faster economic growth. One study suggests that for every extra year of average life expectancy in a population there is a 7% rise in GDP per person. Social gains are likely, too: fewer young people usually means lower rates of crime.

But demographers, economists and politicians are right to fret about our greying. In the rich world babies are vanishing and the ranks of the retired are swelling. In 2008, for the first time, there were more British pensioners than children. By the middle of this century the average Japanese will be 55 years old. Nor will this trend reverse. Despite a tiny uptick in fertility rates in some European countries, the birth dearth continues. And although migration is the only thing which prevents many European populations from shrinking, an influx of outsiders will not change age-structures by much.

The downhill slope

As a result, our workforces will shrivel, almost certainly beginning in 2009. According to a World Bank study, the European labour force peaked in 2008 and will start to decline, as more elderly workers retire than there are young workers to take their places. In the rich world the labour force as it has traditionally been understood (those between 15 and 65) is expected to peak in 2010, at about half a billion people. From then on it is downhill, with some 25m workers shed in the following 15 years.

In Europe, from 2009 onwards, the numbers of non-workers depending on the wealth created by others will grow—bad news for funding health care and pensions. Today in western Europe there are 3.8 people working for every pensioner. In a little more than two decades it will be just 2.4 people working to support each greybeard.

The obvious response is to postpone, gradually, retirement. Economies, especially European ones, could make more use of experienced, skilled and generally healthy old populations. In America, Japan and South Korea, many more people in their 50s remain in employment than in western Europe, where rules on the provision of pensions and other benefits deter older people from staying at work.

And here is a suggestion for where some of the elderly might find jobs: in the burgeoning “age industry”—the think-tanks, agencies and activist groups that develop bright ideas about how to make the most of ageing. Big gatherings will look at the issue. Melbourne, Australia, hosts the tenth global conference on ageing, in 2010. And an international forum will take place in Japan. The great and the good will attend, though Ms Blanchett and friends may be busy elsewhere.





Adam Roberts: news editor, Economist.com