> Behalf Of Dan Minette > > I think it is more than that. Take the German pension plan that > allows for > retirement with the government guaranteeing 70% of salary at age 61. (It > has just been reformed to reduce it to 67% at age 61 by 2030). > As it stands > now, one third of the paychecks of working Germans goes to pay for this > plan. When the demographic bulge (currently at 30-45) moves to 60-75, > things will become difficult. Yes, morbidity will cut this bulge > down, but > the 2050 projection has the 85+ age group at 5.5% of the > population...compared to the present 1.8%. Just think of the health care > costs. >
Then again, a contemporary 80 year old is probably statistically equivalent, health wise, to a 60 year old of just a couple of decades ago. Of course, one reason for so many more older people being around nowadays is that there have not been nearly as many large scale wars in the last half decade. Except for Hitler Jugend and the like, almost all surviving WW2 combatants are >75 years old. None of Australia's dozen or so WW1 survivors is less than 100 years old. I, for one, intend reaching at least my eleventy-first birthday. Which would put me only 7 years ahead of my Great-Aunt Rose who made 104. Dan: > Also, think of the social implications of a country dominated by the aged. > Didn't a certain writer cover that in a book called Earth? Where being a teenager seemed to be even more of a problem to people than it did as we all went through it? Dan: > Well, Australia is like the US in that it is a country of immigrants. Do > you know what fraction of the population is non-European? I'm > guessing that > 5% are original Australians. > If by original Australians you mean Aboriginal, they make up less than 2 percent. Australia was never heavily settled before 1788 - most estimates of total aboriginal population pre-contact range from about 100,000 to at most 500,000. And that over an area about the same as non-Alaskan USA. It is guesswork, and complicated by the aboriginals being nomadic. They had to be nomadic because of the poor quality of the soils, the lack of any plant or animal really suitable for domestication, and the extremes of climate. Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and Steel puts a pretty persuasive case for Australia being extremely unlikely to have been able to kickstart a civilisation in Mid-East/South American/Asian terms. The reason we are nowadays a major food exporter is due mainly to the skill and professionalism of our farmers. Australian research has long been agriculturally biased. Frex, French and Spanish winemakers are now employing Australians to upgrade the quality of their viticulture. Along with Israel, we are probably the best around at dry-land agriculture. Like Israel, we don't have a choice. > > > Apart from that one glitch, anyone can become an Australian citizen - so > > long as you can get into the country that is. BTW, if anyone wants to > >point out about the inhumane treatment currently meted out to asylum > seekers by > > the Australian government I, for one, can only drop my head and mumble a > > heartfelt sorry. > > There are not separate tourist and long term visas? > Yep, including working visas. Then there is permanent residency, which can be granted after 2 years residence without becoming a citizen. Some restrictions apply - can't vote, probably can't get Aust gov pensions, maybe restrictions on Medicare. Problem is that Govt wanted to be seen to be tough on so called "illegal immigrants" arriving by boat to apply for asylum. Election was in the winds, which govt subsequently won. People arriving by boat are seen to be "queue jumpers" in process of getting access to Australian residence. Mere fact Govt has drastically cut back intake on humanitarian grounds leaving little other option has, of course, nothing to do with it. Somehow, Govt also doesn't like how nearly 90% of asylum seekers end up being granted asylum by Aust investigation and/or Court appeal decisions, as against some 30% when asylum status is investigated offshore from Australia. Could it be that the people who get here, even if by risking lives with people smugglers, are in fact more likely to be genuine cases, or is it a problem that Aust guidelines are too lenient? Rather than perhaps attending to redefining Aust guidelines, Govt tries to stop the people arriving. Lately, boats have been turned back - and none of the boats who get here are intended for any more than the one trip. They are rarely seaworthy as everyone knows they'll be destroyed once captured. Also, refugees have been shipped all over the Pacific to various small, bankrupt nations almost totally dependent on Australian aid so they can be seen not to be processed in Australia. Mere fact that the UN is currently saying that "significant numbers" processed fully meet established UNHCR refugee guidelines and will probably end up in Australia anyway means the whole process saves the face of the Govt while ruining Australia's reputation for "a fair go", and also got the PM reelected. Brett: > > Here we don't even have "Italian-Australian", "Baltic-Australian" or > > "Asian-Australian" as designators. We're pretty much just Australians. > >About 25% of Australia's population are foreign born and while food and > customs > > etc from overseas have changed all of us in some way each year, the kids > > from overseas very quickly themselves become Australian. It's a two-way > > street. > > Dan: > > Most, if I understand, are from primarily English speaking > countries. As for foreign born of English speaking countries (UK, Ireland, Canada, NZ, USA, Sth Africa) = 8.64% of total population (total pop = 17,892,423 in 1996 census) Foreign born everywhere else = 13.2%, so most are from non-English speaking areas. Up until early 1950s Australia's immigrants were almost wholly from UK. During 1950s to 1970s, largely European (Greek, Italian, Baltic, Yugoslav, German, Polish etc). Since 1970s, much more varied with larger groups from Asia (including Mid East, India/Pakistan, IndoChina) and South America (lots of Chileans and Argentineans fleeing repressive govts). Recently, Africa has become a major source, not just Sth Africa/Zimbabwe but Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya etc (I was wrong when I said 25% of Australians are foreign born; it's 25% of the State of Victoria, where I live) Note: all figures based on 1996 census Dan: >And, > the small absolute numbers may have something to do with it. In the town > where I grew up, there were historical French, Polish, and German Catholic > churches within a mile of each other,where the sermons were given > in French, > Polish, and German, respectively. My mom, 2nd or 3rd generation native > born, didn't speak English until she was 5. We are largely urbanised, with Melbourne and Sydney (each exceeding 3,000,000) being the main areas where people arrive. Most Aust towns (outside 10 largest cities) probably average no more than about 3,000 people. Town I grew up in was reasonably large for the area at about 200 in town plus 500 in outlying area, the town I was born in was approx 2,500 pop, so we don't get such variation. But nearby where I now live we have Greek Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, various Chinese and Vietnamese Baptist/Salvation Army, as well as Seventh Day Adventist (largely Pacific Islanders) and Mormon churches as well as the standard Catholic/Church of England/Uniting (Prebyterian/Methodist) and Baptist. Only the Baptist/SDA seem to get much of a crowd. Because kindergarten at 4 yo is State funded, very, very few kids would not speak some English before getting to school at 5 or 6. I know my Hungarian friend Zoltan's young son Mono speaks both Hungarian and English, but then his parents speak both anyway. Another friend (Gabi, also Hungarian) and her Hong Kong husband Chai speak only English to their daughter Kimberley (very Hong Kong/Hungarian name that). Dan: > Also, we have a long border with Mexico, which has slowed mainstreaming. > But, it certainly hasn't stopped it. > > > As for the reconquista and harbouring "a nation within a nation," surely > > this is only a problem when rights are not granted to all. > > No, there is a risk when there are large numbers of folks who, by > culture or > looks, are different from the rest. I strongly disagree with > Pat's take on > the solution. The real solution is being more cosmopolitan...but > that ain't > Pat. With the large absolute numbers we have in the 'States, there is a > risk of separate enclaves. > We sort of have some enclaves, but they tend to float a bit over time. Inner city Melbourne (longtime working class suburbs) has pockets of Greeks (Footscray), Italians (Carlton), IndoChinese (Richmond), while some of the outer suburbs also have large immigrant populations (frex, Springvale and Box Hill for Indo Chinese) but these are largely because these same areas have traditionally been where the migrant hostels were. 30 years ago, Springvale was full of UK and European migrants and Richmond for Italians. People tend to move out into different areas once they've got settled into work and the like. In our street here in Forest Hill we have a young Greek/Italian couple next door, an Indian family over our back fence, a lovely old Scottish woman, more Greeks across the road a bit, and so on. And all of the suburbs I've named above still contain significant numbers of multi-gen Australians, previous batches of immigrants, and newcomers from almost anywhere. We are a fairly mobile population - at least within a city - and suburban living means that in many ways it is harder to form an enclave. Australian cities are low density and cover large areas of land. Dan: > I think that there would be a great comparative patterns of immigration > between the US and OZ dissertation for someone. Here, assimilation does > happen, but it tends to take a generation or two. > > > Assimilation was policy a while back, but for the last 20 years it has been multiculturalism Which I think works pretty well, because people still tend to assimilate into the culture that is changing around us. A friend of mine doing National Service in the late 60s early 70s as a training officer was amazed at getting draftees with Greek, Italian, Polish, even Turkish surnames all expecting to be ANZACs within days of starting basic training. Already, with perhaps no more then 10 or 15 years of living in Australia these blokes saw themselves more as Australian than wherever they came from. I can fully understand Gautam and others who are either migrants or locally born of migrant parents quickly becoming Americans because the same thing happens here in Australia. I've even seen some Americans quickly go feral here, becoming Australian pretty damn fast, even to dropping nominal allegiance to say the Chicago Bulls for standard rabid allegiance to a local Aussie Rules team. The important thing, though, is that few really mind if some allegiance is still held for the homeland, so long as it doesn't go past bounds. It's not at all surprising, frex, that the Australian caught fighting in Afghanistan (after stints in Kosovo) was actually Australian and not a migrant. Just a standard soldier of fortune type who could come from anywhere. Most of the Australians of say Serbian descent who returned to fight in Kosovo quickly returned here because it was no longer the Kosovo/Serbia they imagined, and they tended to get homesick for the island continent. Dan: > I think the US and OZ may have more similarities than differences...we may > be more alike than either is like Europe. Population size would > seem to be > the biggest difference. > And vegemite, Aussie Rules, regularly beating the Brits where it counts - on the sporting field, at the Oscars (go Russ/Hugh/Cate/Guy/Rachel/Nicole/Naomi...), using Metric measurements, tolerating sex and nudity more than violence... Brett
