In two 1 hour episodes this international special examines the phenomenon that is set to shape the 21st century… the dramatic ageing of the world’s population.

In one of humanity’s greatest achievements we are defying nature by living longer than ever. Global life expectancy has grown more over the last fifty years than over the previous five thousand. At the same time fertility rates in most of the developed world have fallen well below replacement rate.

Lower birth rates have helped to solve the scourge of overpopulation, but they’ve created a new threat. Every year there are fewer workers and taxpayers to support increasing numbers of older citizens. This ageing process now threatens to bankrupt the world’s leading economies, unless we all change the way we live and work.

From Europe to Asia the alarm is already being sounded. This timely series takes us to the intimate heart of the coming ageing crisis… to those places where ageing is already dramatically changing the way people live.

In the dying southern Italian town of Laviano the birthrate has collapsed and the mayor offers cash bribes for any new mothers. The rapidly ageing city of Shanghai has a court for elders where parents can sue their children for no longer caring for them. In the cities of Australia women in their thirties now struggle to find a partner, let alone have children. In the USA massive health care costs for the retiring boomer generation threaten to bankrupt the economy, and in Japan local elders have formed matchmaking and dating services in a desperate attempt to reverse that country’s terminal fertility decline.
Filmed in Australia, Italy, China, Japan and the USA, Baby Boom to Bust tells the powerful human story of what former US President Jimmy Carter described as the most important and controversial issue of this millennium.

In two 1 hour episodes this international special examines the phenomenon that is set to shape the 21st century… the dramatic ageing of the world’s population.

In one of humanity’s greatest achievements we are defying nature by living longer than ever. Global life expectancy has grown more over the last fifty years than over the previous five thousand. At the same time fertility rates in most of the developed world have fallen well below replacement rate.

Lower birth rates have helped to solve the scourge of overpopulation, but they’ve created a new threat. Every year there are fewer workers and taxpayers to support increasing numbers of older citizens. This ageing process now threatens to bankrupt the world’s leading economies, unless we all change the way we live and work.

From Europe to Asia the alarm is already being sounded. This timely series takes us to the intimate heart of the coming ageing crisis… to those places where ageing is already dramatically changing the way people live.

In the dying southern Italian town of Laviano the birthrate has collapsed and the mayor offers cash bribes for any new mothers. The rapidly ageing city of Shanghai has a court for elders where parents can sue their children for no longer caring for them. In the cities of Australia women in their thirties now struggle to find a partner, let alone have children. In the USA massive health care costs for the retiring boomer generation threaten to bankrupt the economy, and in Japan local elders have formed matchmaking and dating services in a desperate attempt to reverse that country’s terminal fertility decline.
Filmed in Australia, Italy, China, Japan and the USA, Baby Boom to Bust tells the powerful human story of what former US President Jimmy Carter described as the most important and controversial issue of this millennium.