Ageing population or senile system

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that the declining fertility rates and ageing populations observed across the advanced capitalist economies are not demographic inevitabilities but direct products of capitalism's inability to reconcile the needs of working-class families with the demands of profit. The central claim is that the so-called "demographic transition" is a crisis of the system, not of population. Capitalist governments cannot resolve the contradiction between the social costs of raising children and the private extraction of profit, and their attempts to do so through pro-natalist policies, culture war demagogy, and austerity will only deepen the crisis. The real solution — a rationally planned global economy that reduces working time, socialises domestic labour, and guarantees material security — is impossible under capitalism.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis draws on the Marxist understanding of the contradiction between the forces and relations of production. It situates the demographic crisis within capitalism's structural inability to harness technological potential for human need, instead imposing longer working lives and intensified exploitation. The article implicitly deploys the concept of the reserve army of labour — noting that capital simultaneously fears a shortage of new workers and maintains mass unemployment — and the tendency towards the immiseration of the working class, particularly through the intensification of women's unpaid domestic labour. It also engages with the Marxist tradition's critique of Malthusianism, rejecting both overpopulation and underpopulation panics as ideological expressions of a system that subordinates human reproduction to the reproduction of capital. The argument sits within the broader Marxist tradition that understands the family as a site of contradiction under capitalism, where the costs of reproducing labour power are socialised onto individual households while the benefits accrue to capital.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is written in September 2023 and directly addresses the contemporary conjuncture. It cites specific data: global fertility has fallen from 5 children per woman in 1965 to 2.3 today; the 15 largest economies by GDP are below replacement rate; South Korea's fertility rate has fallen to 0.78 despite $250 billion in childcare subsidies; the average cost of raising a child in the US to age 18 is $300,000. It names concrete political forces: Pope Francis's "demographic winter" rhetoric, Giorgia Meloni's pro-natalist demagogy in Italy, the Chinese Communist Party's abandonment of the one-child policy, and Macron's pension reform that triggered mass strikes and riots in France. The article also engages directly with the credit ratings agency S&P's "Global Ageing 2023" report, which demands cuts equivalent to 10% of GDP in imperialist countries and 18% in ex-colonial countries — double the scale of the Tory austerity programme in Britain. This situates the demographic question at the heart of the current wave of austerity and class struggle.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several threads open for further development. It does not fully theorise the relationship between the falling rate of profit and the demographic crisis — that is, whether the ageing population is itself a symptom of overaccumulation and declining profitability, or primarily a consequence of the intensification of exploitation. The article gestures towards the global South but focuses overwhelmingly on OECD and imperialist countries; the demographic dynamics of the ex-colonial world — where fertility rates remain higher but are also falling rapidly — are not explored in depth. The question of migration as a safety valve for capital's labour shortages is raised but not developed. The article also does not engage with the Marxist literature on social reproduction and the "crisis of care" as a distinct theoretical terrain. These themes are taken up in other IDOM articles on the family, women's liberation, and the pension system, as well as in broader Marxist texts on the political economy of the household.

Connections

The article connects to the Marxist tradition's critique of Malthusianism, most classically developed in Marx's own writings on population in Capital and in Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England. It also connects to the contemporary Marxist-feminist literature on social reproduction, particularly the work of Lise Vogel, Silvia Federici, and the "domestic labour debate" of the 1970s. The article's focus on the gap between desired and actual fertility echoes the findings of the OECD's "Society at a Glance" reports. Readers should also consult IDOM's articles on the pension crisis, the French strikes, and the political economy of the family, as well as the broader Marxist analysis of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as the underlying driver of capitalist stagnation and austerity.

Key Quotes

1. "Fears over a declining and ageing population are the mirror image of anxieties of overpopulation. They are both rooted in a society which places profit above all else and is therefore unable to unlock the immense productive potential of modern industry allowing everyone to work less, retire earlier and have the families they desire."

2. "The current low fertility rate is the product of the contradiction between the needs of the family and the needs of the capitalists. Parents require an accommodating workplace, affordable and high quality childcare, as well as the resources needed to raise children in conditions worthy of human beings. However, the capitalist will always run their workplace in the interests of profit."

3. "One way or another the capitalists will force the workers to pay. And the irony is, in piling pressure on workers with families and those considering starting families in order to pay for the needs of an ageing population, the ruling class will make it ever-more unsustainable to begin a family in the first place. The logic of capitalism is creating a vicious cycle."

4. "The underlying assumption of the S&P report is that the economy will continue its sluggish growth. On a capitalist basis, that is the best that can be hoped for. The capitalists have demonstrated that they cannot unleash even a fraction of the vast technological potential the world has at its disposal."

5. "So long as the economy remains in private hands and driven by the anarchy of the market, families will be squeezed until the pips squeak. They will be torn between the pressures of work and child rearing at every turn. The result will further exacerbate the demographic crisis."

6. "It is not the population that is senile, but the system."