The cost of Britain's ageing population

Britain's population is getting older. And as older people tend to watch the pennies more, that's bad news for growth. Merryn Somerset Webb explains why.

Are you an average FT Weekend reader (aged about 44)? Have you noticed that your parents spend rather less money than you do? If so, it is possible that you have more of an insight into the growth patterns of the UK than all the City's economists put together.

It is increasingly clear that trend GDP growth rates are strongly influenced by how many people of any particular age live in any one country. In the UK, for example, we tend to think that constant growth at 2%-4% is normal simply because, for as long as we can remember, any dip has been followed by quick recovery.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.