I often find the idea of "maturity" an interesting concept. We have a fairly fixed average lifetime expectancy, which can vary by a couple of years depending on where you live (on average). I think the global average is 68 years old for both sexes.

The western world has an fairly fixed period of "maturing" into adulthood, which is usually achieved when the individual reaches 18 years old. Most countries then offer the vote and other "adult" related perks and responsibilities. Meanwhile, adults are living longer and social and health support costs for those people in retirement is increasing and this burden falls on the working population.

Historically humans have matured before 18 years old. This shift has happened over the last two centuries (western world). However, let's not forget that in many parts of the world, children start work and start families at a much younger age and it is socially acceptable within their own societies. These are concepts that we in the western world find (now) quite bizarre, but during the (British) industrial revolution, children (and we had a lot of them) helped to power the revolution, working in mines and factories. These children had children younger and further increased the population at a more rapid growth rate. We now look on this with distaste, disgust and a large degree of pity, but at the time I doubt it was viewed as so.

I would go further and state that today we see this as slavery, whilst back then they saw it as necessity. This necessity still exists around the world, and even though there is a huge drive in the western world to boycott companies in the third and second world who use child labor, it is an important source of income for their families living in poverty. Importantly and all to often forgotten, we are too blinded by our indignation to see otherwise. I'm not saying that this is right, merely making an observation.

Meanwhile our welfare states are collapsing and we have few options. We have to reduce our social support costs or see our support systems collapse. Alternatively we could import human resource from abroad to pay the taxes to support welfare. Importing labor is not without its own challenges, but has helped to build countries like the United States into global powerhouses.

Without a doubt, we need to extend people's working lives (i.e. later retirement), which is for many countries, especially in Europe, the first step on this path. The "lord taketh and the lord taketh away", but woe betide the state that tries to take anything away from its citizens. Countries like France are being brought to their knees by this welfare burden. The people protest in their millions as they see banks profit and get richer, but nothing will change, except for the fact that eventually, the French will have to accept later retirement and higher taxes.

Thus, the question I put to you is this: Do our children really need 18 years to mature, or is our system taking 18 years to mature them? Are we able to improve the system so that we can increase the number of workers in the system from the bottom up, rather than the top down?

We could radically change the way (and speed) in which we educate our children (and have more of them) to help offset the welfare gap from the bottom up. I haven't ever heard this idea proposed and the devil's advocate in me wants to question why not?

I have children and I want the best for them. On one hand I want them to enjoy their "extended" childhood, but I also want them not to suffer in poverty when they get older. The pragmatist in me thinks that there is little option other than consider extending the worker's life from both sides.

To summarize, the baby boomers fucked us and we and our children just have to live with the consequences.