Bernard Salt Demographics | Public figure
Bernard Salt Demographics
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25.01.2022 America has spent billions to ensure that it has military superiority with its investment in the likes of stealth bombers and deadly drones; President Trump even announced the formation of a Space Force in 2019. And yet for all this spending, this whiz-bang new technology, America faces its greatest threat in 75 years with a range of health and societal issues that have coincided with the coming of the coronavirus. In recent weeks more Americans have died daily from the coron...avirus than from the 9/11 attacks. A nation must be able to work, to pay taxes, to deliver a good quality of life, in order to succeed. Perhaps spending programs need to be widened (both in America and in Australia) to ensure that the developed world remains united and respectful of minorities but also accepting of the will of the majority. I think we are too focussed on a narrow range of external threats when the events of the last year show we also need to focus on healing, uniting and creating a better version of our communities. It's hard to sow the seeds of dissent in a nation that offers equal opportunity to all. We need to invest in social cohesion just as much if not more than we need to invest in military might. See page 25 The Weekend Australian Magazine $4.50 p/w https://tinyurl.com/y3h66zqo See more
24.01.2022 Last December I helped design and launch a survey on attitudes to work. My collaborators in this project were Simon Kuestenmacher from The Demographics Group, Andrea Clarke from Future Fit and Alicia Stephenson from The Centre for Generational Dynamics. The results from more than 500 respondents are in and you are invited to a preliminary discussion about the findingswhat does it all mean?at a free webinar Tuesday 23 February 11am-12 noon. Each of the collaborators will spend fine minutes outlining their thoughts about the results. This will be followed by 10 minutes group chat. And then we will throw open to audience Q&A. Register below for this free and most assuredly fascinating discussion about the future of work. https://tinyurl.com/hdoa3421
22.01.2022 Come with me on a journey into the secret world of words where the words that words are paired with, reveal the secret world of words. Why is climate change always tackled like a rugby player. Why isn't it corralled, controlled or quarantined for that matter? Why do we fall in love. It suggests something that happens by happenstance. Surely we should be rewarded with love for the truly fascinating people we are. Premiers and health bureaucrats talk about an "abundance of... caution" as if caution is some kind of grain that is measured in bushels. Why not the more colourful and alliterative "cornucopia of caution?" Hope is clearly a liquid for it springs eternal and is apt to evaporate. Why is a vaccine rolled out? Surely it should be channelled, sluiced or squirted? Passion must be a highly flammable substance because if you're not careful it can be ignited. Why are party elders and luminaries wheeled out, as if they must be moved around--Hannibal-Lecter-like--on a builder's trolley? Our relationship with China is a runaway train because it we need to get it back on track. When you look for word pairings you get a glimpse into the secret world of words. See page 25 The Weekend Australian Magazine $4.50 (p/w) https://tinyurl.com/9ewdtafb See more
20.01.2022 Calamities leave their mark on consumer behaviour. Those who touched the Great Depression were frugal for the rest of their lives. How will we be changed by the pandemic? I would like to see supermarkets retain their hand sanitiser stations long into the future. Australians have adapted well to the new ways of doing things eg Telehealth. But technology has gone much further with QR codes now required to eat in many restaurants. Maybe there'll be a new social division in the p...ost-covid world that differentiates people on the uptake of technology. Some people--typically older Australians--may not be able to keep up with new ways of booking a restaurant (online), making payments (ApplePay or 'card tapping'), ordering an Uber (as opposed to phoning a taxi), or setting a destination in a modern car using GPS (as opposed to reading a map). Some people may prefer to use cash, street directories and landlines. Others might simply prefer to hold onto the quaint idea of ringing ahead to make an appointment or a booking. Maybe the new (post-covid) normal involves an agile majority who lean into the new technology and a minority who rail against technology's relentless advance. See page 25 "The Weekend Australian Magazine" $4.50 or (p/w) https://lnkd.in/g5vJyWZ See more
12.01.2022 In my column this weekend I talk about the experience of losing a parent later in life. You know that it's coming but even so it's still a shock when it happens. Late last year I wrote about the perspective of life from the edge of life by interviewing my mother on the occasion of her 95th birthday. In that piece I asked what her parents might be amazed about with "modern life". I was thinking she might say the internet or social media. She said the electric blanket! To... her generation freedom from cold, from hunger, from darkness (eg electric light) was more important than connectivity. I think that piece showcased the grit and the pragmatism of her generation. She loved it as did many readers. But sadly she died just three weeks later. And while I have many happy memories of my mother, and I even dropped in to visit her and chatted by phone with her just days before she died peacefully in her sleep, I can't help but think that I'd love to have had just one more chat, just one more cup of tea with this remarkable woman who so shaped my life. See page 25 "The Weekend Australian Magazine" $4.50. See link to online column (p/w) in comments. See more
03.01.2022 Last week I made several contributions to the annual Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) #conference including a presentation as well as participation in a panel discussion hosted by Jeremy Cooper. I also wrote a paper called "Rethinking retirement" (link below) which looked at how #retirement might evolve in the 2020s in response to underlying #demographic trends and the coming of the coronavirus. The report shows that the baby bust will deliver an increa...sing number of retirees every year to 2026. I show that more baby boomers are working on beyond the age of 65 and especially since #Covid hit. I argue that today's retirees are more anxious about the future than preceding generations because the pandemic has created a sense of uncertainty (what other calamities await us?), and because having had 29 years of unbroken prosperity many older Australians (especially) are worried about losing what they had built up (whereas for the war and depression generations the thinking was, the future has to be better than the present). This paper sets out the latest data, cites examples, looks at accommodation options for the Over-65s, uses "personas" to explore retirement thinking, and invents an acronym to communicate the very latest retirement trends. Download here: https://tinyurl.com/yspj2gem See more
