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I never said it wasn't. You have to read comments in context. The olds in the Conservative party support immigration because of "labor shortage" and to prop up the pension system. Young people support it for reasons of social justice.
If young people face paying for an ever expanding welfare state aimed at the old (e.g. the UK state pension, which is designed to almost always provide an increased welfare income for the retired via the Triple Lock) then it's understandable that they would want more shoulders to carry the burden. True, that creates increased pressure for housing and perhaps wages, but the alternative is massive taxes and spending cuts on working younger people to pay for the welfare that older Britons demand.
The welfare state is a system designed for the demographics of the pre-Gen X eras. As the social democrat economist Paul Samuelson put it, things like Social Security are Ponzi schemes, presupposing perpetual increases in the numbers of young workers to ensure that ever generation is significantly larger than preceding generations. There are a variety of options, including:
(1) Have more children. Too late, at least for the current generation of middle-aged or old people.
(2) Move away from a pay-as-you-go welfare state, e.g. to the Singapore model of mandatory savings. Too late, at least for the current generation of middle-aged or old people, and a huge imposition on the young, who would be both paying for a savings-based retirement for themselves and a pay-as-you-go retirement for the old.
(3) Mass immigration.
(4) Cuts in welfare for existing retirees, plus a movement towards (1) and/or (2) somehow.
Unfortunately, (3) is the path of least resistance for politicians. Older people want the result of less immigration, but how many of them are willing to accept smaller state pensions, less state healthcare, higher taxes on their retirement incomes etc. to pay for it? "Wanting something" is an ambiguous concept: do you want it enough to undertake the process of getting it? Or would you just like it if it happened with less or no sacrifice?
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Obviously some old people are in favour of immigration, but that doesn’t make that policy a result of gerontocracy. The opposite is the case.
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