Destiny and danger where demography meets finance

“LIKE anybody, I would like to live a long life – longevity has its place,” said Martin Luther King Jr in the last speech he would ever give. “But I’m not concerned about that now.” That was one of history’s greatest and most prophetic orations. In the 56 years since, humanity has moved on. People still want to live a longer life, they are increasingly having their wish, and they’re able to deploy money to make it happen. But, while longevity continues to lengthen, day-to-day most people don’t seem so concerned about it.

In the financial world, at least, that is shifting. Longevity is a full-fledged investment theme, with ambitious tech entrepreneurs even shifting from trying to increase longevity to making an attempt to conquer mortality itself. There is also ever more awkward stirring over the impact that a population that lives longer, in combination with a falling birth rate, could have on the economy.

By definition, demographics only change very slowly, making their effects easy to ignore. Wars and increasingly ugly politics make it all the harder to pay attention. But the Covid-19 pandemic aroused fears that the birth rate could decline even faster. The numbers being published for 2023 begin to suggest that those fears were reasonable.