alt Hacker NewsWhen children are young, parents and grandparents take care of them. When a spouse gets sick, the other takes care of them. When children are older, they take care of their parents and grandparents.
When people aren’t getting married and having children, things get very weird as far as caretaking goes (and other things) and no amount of pleading or social engineering can solve this.
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>no amount of pleading or social engineering can solve this
Isn’t the institution of marriage itself a form of social engineering? I agree that trying to build new social institutions from whole cloth is a huge lift, but at the same time I don’t think it’s impossible to imagine alternative social arrangements that allow for the care of the elderly.
So what are you proposing? Force people to marry and have children? Ignore the problem?
When children are older, they take care of their parents and grandparents
Not around here; many parents and grandparents are put away in care homes. The tax code even penalizes multiple generations living together as many elderly benefits are conditional on total household income.
Modern medicine greatly extending lifespan while incapacitated or otherwise needing lots of help also makes things get very weird.
> When children are older, they take care of their parents and grandparents.
This is a core value in many eastern cultures. I'm not trying to put down western cultures - only pointing out a difference - I do not believe it is a core value of western cultures (i'd love to be proven wrong of course).
Also, when children grow up and move away, or immigrate to a different countries, this produces problems to the ageing parents.