When demographic decline becomes a democratic question

As a demographer, Goujon studies the long-term dynamics of demographic change using population projections and scenarios. Her research examines how differences within populations, including characteristics such as education, shape future population structures and how those structures, in turn, affect societies.

Debates about demographic decline in high-income societies often focus on labor shortages, population aging, pension sustainability, and growing pressure on welfare systems. These concerns are important, but they can hide another consequence of decades of low birth rates combined with increasing longevity: younger generations are becoming less prominent not only in the population, but also in labor markets, innovation, culture, and democratic debates.

Italy illustrates these trends particularly clearly, as previously shown by Caltabiano and Rosina. Fertility has remained below replacement level since 1977 and was estimated at 1.14 children per woman in 2025. People under 15 were already outnumbered by those aged over 65 in 1992, and projections indicate that this demographic imbalance will continue to widen over the coming decades.

Against this backdrop, Goujon explored what dejuvenation means for young people entering fast-changing labor markets. Digitalization, automation, artificial intelligence, and global production networks increasingly require adaptable skills and continuous learning. Yet welfare systems designed around stable careers and predictable life trajectories are still poorly aligned with the fragmented and non-linear working lives many young adults experience today.

Precarious employment, unaffordable housing, environmental anxiety, and uncertainty about the future can also diminish young people’s sense of agency. This can affect occupational ambition, mobility, civic participation, and decisions about whether and when to have children. Goujon argues that economic incentives alone cannot reverse demographic decline when young adults continue to face structural obstacles to building the lives and families they want.

The consequences extend beyond the labor market. As electorates age, younger people make up a shrinking share of those entitled to vote, even though decisions on climate adaptation, public debt, infrastructure, scientific investment, and artificial intelligence will shape their lives for decades. In Italy, voters aged 50 and over are projected to outnumber those aged 18–49 by 2050, while the political influence of younger residents is further reduced because many hold foreign citizenship and cannot vote.

The governance of AI provides is one example of this imbalance. Decisions taken today about algorithms, training data, and automated systems will shape future labor markets and social institutions. New technologies may create significant opportunities for younger generations, but realizing those opportunities requires institutions that distribute their benefits broadly and ensure that younger voices are heard in decision-making.

Goujon discusses proposals intended to strengthen representation across generations, including lowering the voting age, extending voting rights to long-term noncitizen residents, creating representatives or parliamentary bodies for future generations, and adopting constitutional commitments to intergenerational equity.

Ultimately, she argues that demographic aging should not be framed as a conflict between young and old. The deeper tension is between the present and the future. The challenge is to build institutions that align generations around a shared horizon and preserve confidence that those who will live longest with the consequences of today’s choices can help shape them.

Read the full Expert Voices article in Science.

Note: This article gives the view of the author, and not the position of the IIASA Insights blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.