The Standard & Poor’s Global Aging report emphasizes: “No other force is likely to shape the future of national economic health, public finances, and policy making as the irreversible rate at which the world’s population is aging. The problem has been long observed and is well understood.” The analysis adds, “U.N. figures show the proportion of the world’s population aged over 65 is set to more than double by 2050, to 16.2% from 7.6% currently.”

“The elderly” refers to people who are over 65. These people are, for the most part, retired and not working. The eventual burden of supporting them will become impossible to sustain in some countries, and in many it nearly is already.

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These huge debt loads of many countries have risen as nations have spent far more than their tax receipts, and the trouble can no longer be remedied by GDP growth as it often was in the latter half of the 20th Century. Few developed nations have rapid enough GDP growth to decrease deficits and bring down national debt. That leaves higher taxes and spending cuts as the only means to close budget gaps.

Care for the elderly the US is at the core of entitlement reform. Projections by the Congressional Budget Office and think tanks show that Social Security and Medicare costs will be overwhelming in a few decades. Defense cuts and reductions in discretionary federal government spending will not be enough to offset the cost of entitlement programs, which are growing more quickly than other government expenses. According to Standard and Poor’s, the United States will undergo a greater increase in health care spending for the elderly than any other developed nation. The battle over entitlement reforms has begun already. People who are in their prime working years face the possibility that the payments they receive from Social Security will be less than those their parents received or are receiving.

The analysis of the problem takes into account: (1) the amount spent as a percentage of GDP on health care for elderly, (2) pension spending, (3) unemployment benefits for the elderly, and (4) long-term care. Health care and long-term care are primarily medical costs. Pension costs, which include early retirement and disability pensions, cover primarily the expenses of daily living. Unemployment costs cover the elderly who do not have pensions or other means of independent financial support.

Each country’s burden is based on current GDP growth and for the next four decades, net government debt, debt as a percentage of GDP, and the S&P sovereign credit rating of the 49 countries.

24/7 Wall St. chose the ten nations which currently spend the most on care for the elderly as a percentage of GDP. Most of these counties face a grim financial future as the number of old people grows more quickly than their country’s GDP. This gap will be a primary driver of increases in national deficits, which in turn will drive national debt higher.

There have been no acceptable solutions suggested for these problems. All of citizens of nations on this list refuse to have their retirement benefits lowered. The issues can be deferred, but the process that will increase costs will eventually push indebted nations to the point where sovereign borrowing will become unsustainable. Then, like Greece, many of the nations analyzed here will face years of austerity forced on them by creditors.

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