Abstract
Population decline can be considered in two different ways. The first perspective is looking back, fear, and pessimism: decline is a problem that needs to be fixed immediately. Things have to return to the way they were because in the past everything was better. That is a restricted vision, or like Hiddema (Met zuinigheid en vlijt. Ad Donker, Rotterdam, 1992) put it into words: ‘Fear causes the pupils to dilate but narrows the view’. The second approach to decline is looking ahead, creativity, and optimism: decline is potential that needs to be exploited. Let us grab the new situation to investigate the ingrained mentalities and procedures. In short, let us use population decline as a motivation to look differently at the reality.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The classic example of a ‘prisoner’s dilemma’ is two prisoners committing a crime together (Axelrod 1984). They are both faced with the choice of denying their involvement (collaboration) in the crime or by betraying the other (no collaboration). If the prisoners both remain silent they will both receive one year in jail. If they testify against each other they will both go to jail for fifteen years. If only one testifies, he will walk freely and the other will go to jail for thirty years. The result: due to distrust and insecurity the prisoners do not work together—they both go to jail for fifteen years. In short: the favorable result for both prisoners and thus the collective interest is not achieved.
- 2.
This paragraph is based on the chapter ‘Population decline and ageing in Europe’ by Nol Reverda published in Hessle, S. ed. (2014). Human Rights and Social Equality. London: Ashgate Publishing.
- 3.
Research shows that ageing only determines a quarter of the increasing health care costs in the Netherlands (Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport 2012). Three quarters of the cost increase is applicable to other factors such as our higher prosperity (we accept a decreasing amount of discomfort whereby the demand for care increases), technological development (an increasing number of diseases can be detected and treated thus the number of procedures increase) and an increase in the number of chronically ill patients.
- 4.
- 5.
With special thanks to Albert Riga, researcher at the research centre Social Integration at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, for thinking along with the formula of the experience index.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hospers, GJ., Reverda, N. (2015). Creative with Population Decline. In: Managing Population Decline in Europe's Urban and Rural Areas. SpringerBriefs in Population Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12412-4_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12412-4_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12411-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12412-4
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)