Gerontocracy: Importing Workers to Pay Pensions

A country that imports 300,000 workers to support its elderly

The theory of gerontocracy has a crude economic version: aging societies import adult immigrants to pay the pensions of those who had no children. It's not a conspiracy, it's a mechanism with a name. In Spain, pensions take the lion's share of the budget and young people get the crumbs from the ERTE. Aging is not exclusive: even China suffers from it.

The uncomfortable alternative to birth rates

Bringing in already-grown immigrants is faster and cheaper than promoting native birth rates. Those who defend migratory replacement see it as the only way to sustain the system. But the cost appears on another bill: competition for jobs, pressure on public services and housing. The government, it is argued, gets used to immigration and abandons birth rate plans because they don't pay off in the short term. The consequence is twofold: labor becomes cheaper and rent becomes more expensive.

The electoral bill of gerontocracy

Power trinc the ballot box. Those over 65 vote; those under 30 don't even register. The result is a system that takes care of those who vote and neglects those who don't yet have a voice. Gerontocracy is not a narrative: it's electoral arithmetic. And the final paradox: a country willing to import 300,000 people a year to care for its elderly, but unable to convince its young people to stay, vote and have children.