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.