Foreword Demographic change is a most powerful but barely noticeable socioeconomic process mainly because it is slow to occur and is spread over decades, if not centuries. For instance, if the median age increases by a month or two, statisticians are the only ones likely to notice.
Since Germany’s re-unification in 1990, population has lingered at around 82 million, but the number of households increased from 35 million to just under 42 million in 2020.
Population ageing does not make society look much different one year to the next. Nor does it change the look and feel of our towns and cities. However, small changes every year can have substantial impacts if they keep happening over long periods.
New Zealand is a much younger country with a much younger population. The last time Germany was as young as New Zealand is today was in the mid-1980s.
I have seen this happen in Germany, where I was born in 1975. The median age for men that year was 33.2 years and 37.7 years for women. Today, it is 44.1 years and 47.6 years, respectively. A median age roughly a decade higher is detectable with the naked eye. Germany today has fewer children and young families but way more elderly people. Fewer schools but more care homes. Fewer TV commercials selling sweets and toys and more peddling prescription-free drugs and stair-lifts. Demographic ageing also leads to policy challenges. I stumbled upon one in 2005 while researching international housing policy for Policy Exchange in London. A city planner I interviewed on a field trip to Germany said many cities in his region had to keep building new homes due to the changing composition and needs of households even as population figures stagnated. Demographic change had reduced household sizes. Only 27.6% of all German households were single-person in 1975 compared with 42.3% in 2020.
These worrying developments in Germany are New Zealand’s demographic future, as my colleague Leonard Hong warns in this report.
And it is not just Germany. Similar household demographic changes are occurring in all the developed economies Leonard has analysed. He unequivocally shows that New Zealand will need a lot more dwellings to meet its housing demand. The only question is the extent of the shortfall if we do not substantially increase building now. Leonard also reminds us that demographic changes are usually beyond government control. Government cannot make us live longer (or otherwise). It cannot make us have more children (though authoritarian regimes have reduced fertility rates). Government would struggle to fine-tune net migration figures even if it tried. For these reasons, we would be wise to treat our challenging demographic future as a given and use the resources we have to prepare for it. Tomorrow will be here before we know it. If so, and if the housing effects of demographic change internationally are true, then New Zealand is sitting on a brick-and-mortar timebomb. Our country’s future housing needs
THE NEW ZEALAND INITIATIVE 05
