A question for the historians

[eveglass]

Just one more for now, I promise.

Question for the historians: We hear a lot today about how the low birth rate in many industrialized countries (U.S., Europe, parts of Asia) is leading to an "economic time bomb," when a small number of working-age people will need to support a large number of elderly people.

Are there any historical periods with an analogous situation? Perhaps after a plague or a war, when many young people were killed but not so much of the older generation? Anyone know what happened to those societies?

Comments

[concordantnexus.livejournal.com]

There's already indications that the trend is reversing a bit as women are realizing that they can have kids as late as 40+.

Don't think that there is a historical precedent - closest was Black Death which made peasant labour valuable and broke much of hold that the nobility had on their serfs.

[dizietsma.livejournal.com]

Post WW1 Europe would be a candidate, the cream of Europe's young men went off to die or come home horribly changed. The difference between that and what you are describing though is that the cream of Europe's young women were still around at the time.

[concordantnexus.livejournal.com]

The Brits shipped off the surplus women to the colonies - it's been argued that that generation helped fuel the rise of feminism in places like Canada.