Ageing Britain
Have you seen that TV programme where a computer shows someone what they will look like in 20 years' time if they don't alter their lifestyle?
A brief animation begins with a young, happy face and ends with a gnarled old walnut of a visage and the sound of the distraught guest promising to change his or her ways.
Well, to mark , the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has produced a remarkable that does the same sort of thing. And it is equally disturbing.
Although we know that the British population is getting older, there is something quite startling about watching the map change as, for instance, the proportion of children in the country shrinks.
Back in 1992, in communities across most of the country, the sound of children playing would have rung out with roughly one person in five under the age of 15. Northern Ireland's youthful population can be clearly seen. Now such neighbourhoods are significantly rarer and will continue to become so.
The reason, of course, is that people are living longer and the birth rate is historically low. Another set of maps showing the proportion of the population over the state pension age offers the story in reverse.
Back in 1992, in most of Britain, roughly one in five of the local population were OAPs. By 2023, huge swathes of the country may have a quarter or a third of people collecting their pensions, particularly coastal and rural areas.
The implications of this change are, of course, very significant. The cost of caring for the increasing elderly people in Britain will fall on a proportionately smaller working population.
The ONS maps, produced by the award-winning designer Alan Smith, allow users to see how the Old Age Support Ratio stacks up for their local area.
Nationally, there are currently 3.2 people of working age for each person of pensionable age. However, this disguises very considerable local variation. For instance, in Tower Hamlets in London, a large immigrant population pushes the ratio up to 9.2 workers for every one OAP and looks set to rise further.
By contrast in Rother, the district around Bexhill, Rye and Battle in East Sussex, the current ratio is 1.5 and falling.
If the government's commitment to localism means that the burden of an ageing population increasingly falls on local communities themselves, then this variation could prove socially divisive.
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