Person A: I support high levels of immigration.
Person B: Weren't you complaining about wages being too low? High levels of immigration directly impact wage growth in a negative way.
Person A: Yeah, but we don't have enough people to care for and replace baby boomers, so we need those immigrants.
Besides telling boomers to get rekt, what's your initial response?
Obviously, it's hypocritical to dissuade citizens from having children, and then turning around and saying we don't have enough people so we need more immigrants.
But I feel like I'm missing something here and can't quite put my finger on it.
Short answer: The immigrants aren't going to look after the boomers.
The family conscious ones will be sending resources back for their boomer family in the home country. And the more self-centred ones will either be sucking up care resources themselves or the first to suggest pulling the plug on boomers to save themselves the work/cost. After all, why should they sacrifice their comfort for a bunch of old people the have no cultural or familial connection with?
Plus if the system needs more than 1:1 birth rates to accommodate elderly care adequately, then you're just kicking the can down the road and eventually magnifying the problem by importing immigrants. Because they're going to grow old and expect to be cared for too, except there'll be even more elderly to somehow look after.