iwNEWS: Elderly revolt in Germany's 2030

From Agence France Presse comes the follow news article. German TV tackles a timely issue with an interesting sci-fi slant. Let's hope this one makes the transatlantic trip to American airways. You be the judge.

Desperate pensioners rob banks to pay for medicine or are left to die in "retirement camps". Doctors perform mass euthanasia in return for bonuses from health insurance companies.

It's Germany in the year 2030 in a new TV drama that predicts an apocalyptic future for a rapidly ageing population.

"The Revolt of the Old" is a three-part series being shown on the publicly funded ZDF channel.

The plot follows a journalist who sets out to investigate a shady insurance company only to discover that old people are increasingly impoverished.

The government has slashed the pension to a miserly 560 euros (730 dollars) a month, creating bitter divisions between the generations.

Against this backdrop, doctors have thrown ethics to the wind and embittered families turn against their older members and physically abuse them. Or the old are sent to camps in Africa to see out their days.

Over the top? Possibly, say the show's makers.

"When you do science fiction, you have to exaggerate a bit," admitted ZDF editor-in-chief Nikolaus Brender.

Some groups representing the elderly have taken issue with the series.

"It is an insult to human dignity," said Dieter Meyer, the vice-president of the Grey Panthers, a political party set up to promote the rights of the old.

The VdK association, which promotes social equality for retired and handicapped people, has accused "The Revolt of the Old" of scaremongering.

Others, including the German foundation for retirement homes, say the gloomy picture many not be far-fetched.

"Some of it is rooted in reality," said its president, Eugen Brysch.

The cold, hard facts make worrying reading for the leaders of the biggest economy in Europe.

With an average of just 1.36 children per woman, Germany has one of the lowest birthrates on the continent.

As a result, the population is set to drop by as much 12 million to 70 million by 2050, according to estimates from the federal statistics office.

In common with many European countries, by 2030 there will be one worker to every retired person in Germany, compared with a ratio of two to one today.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has brought in a raft of measures to try to address the problem, including raising the retirement age to 67 from its current level of 65 or offering generous tax breaks to encourage people to take out private pensions.

Many experts say it is too little too late.

"We are trapped. If we don't take drastic measures immediately, we will never get out of this mess," one leading demographer, Herwig Birg, told the Cologne-based Express newspaper.

He suggests measures which no government would currently dare to introduce, such as cutting in half the pension of people who do not have children or forcing companies to recruit parents rather than childless unmarried workers in a bid to redress the birthrate.

The VdK association meanwhile has called for penalties for companies which allow too many employees to retire early.

Meinhard Miegel, the scientific director of the IWG economic research institute in Bonn, fears that the greatest risk is not a "revolt of the old", but an "uprising of the young."

"If we cross the threshold of tolerance, the young generations will do everything they can to escape the financial burden," he told Die Welt newspaper.

Source: Agence France Presse