Every human civilization that has ever existed requires the young being productive enough for themselves and about 2 other other dependents. This isn't some "muh capitalism" scapegoat.
You've never used or heard of grandparents being used to provide childcare?
Anyway, providing we can improve productivity sufficiently, then along with various measures that will enable the elderly to largely take care of themselves (medical advancements etc.) I don't think we're going to reach a situation where we simply have no capacity to keep the oldest generation alive and well. I can also see laws and attitudes towards euthanasia changing such that those with the highest care needs will no longer expect to be kept alive regardless of quality of life.
There will always be some percentage of the population that are essentially incapable of contributing further to the economy due to advanced age, and yes, it will grow, but I suspect you underestimate the vitality of many older Japanese.
Old people eventually can’t work and need people to take care of them. The more working people there are per non-working person, the easier this is. Birth rates dropping to half of replacement levels means there will decades, maybe even centuries, of unprecedented low worker:retiree ratios.
That math simply isn't true, because one old person with dementia can take a whole family to manage. And it requires them to destroy their lives to do so.
I think we as society has to come to harsh realization that keeping people alive past time when they can self-function with certain level of support is coming to end. Unless they have enough wealth stored away to pay for it.
It is very scary thought, but as cynic or realist it seems only solution.
Bad for the utterly stupid rentier capitalists that run everything in the west. Hopefully the coming population decline will wipe them out. For less hopefully look to Britain where the tyranny of the rentier classes continues while everything falls apart.
In the US it feels like the pandemic accelerated things by about ten years, hence the current bitching about people not wanting to work. Florida trying to legalize child labor.
Reverting to 1 billion people would be good if the age distribution doesn't change. Because there would be more capital per worker leading to increased productivity and higher wages.
However, if it means a higher proportion of old people, the working population will need to give a greater portion of their wages to them.
Unless I miss something, any reduction in population due to fewer births will change the age distribution, so reverting to 1 billion people without changing the age distribution means billions of people dying much earlier than they have been. I'm going to say that's ... not good.
Not bad for the planet or the climate. But bad for people who care about civilizations, geopolitics or macro-economics.
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