Mullan, Phil

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MULLAN, Phil

PERSONAL: Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland; Education: Kent University, B.A. (economics).

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, I. B. Tauris, 6 Salem Rd., London W2 4BU, England. E-mail— [email protected].

CAREER: Economist and business consultant. Former chief executive, Cybercafe Ltd., London, England; operator of business consultancy firm. Easynet Group Pic, non-executive director.

WRITINGS:

The Imaginary Time Bomb: Why an Ageing Population Is Not a Social Problem, I. B. Tauris (London, England), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS: Phil Mullan is a British business consultant and economist, a former chief executive of the internet cafe company Cybercafe Ltd. His year 2000 title, The Imaginary Time Bomb: Why an Ageing Population Is Not a Social Problem, explodes the myth that an aging population is responsible for many of the social and economic woes that effect industrial societies in the beginning of the twenty-first century. As he writes in his book, "The essential thesis advanced here is that . . . demographic ageing began its newfound prominence about two decades ago as a scapegoat for changes in society and economy that have non-demographic causes." Mullan argues that modest economic growth will take care of this aging labor force and that the idea of the "support ratio" of workers to retired people used by many doomsayers is skewed. According to Mullan's argument, the number of working people needed to support one retired person has dropped significantly over time because of the rising productivity of each worker in a technological environment. Additionally, Mullan tackles the myth of increased health-care costs for the elderly, noting that the stereotype of the sickly senior is vastly out of date; in fact, Mullan shows in his study that older citizens, having already gone through many of the illnesses of youth, are less expensive to care for than their juniors. As Peter Gorrie noted in the Toronto Star, "People are living longer, but they're also living healthier." And in the face of declining birth rates, such healthy older citizens may provide a knowledgeable and experienced job pool in the future.

For Mullan, the idea that society cannot afford to take care of the ever larger aging population is simply not true, and as Richard Brinkman noted in the Journal of Economic Issues, the aging "time bomb is imaginary and has come to be used by those promulgating a particular political and ideological agenda as a 'red herring' in their attack on the role of government and on the historic objectives of the welfare state." As Mullan writes in his book, "Ageing poses no economic problem, but the widespread belief that it does is a problem. It encourages negative attitudes to the old." Though written from a British perspective, Mullan's book is, according to Brinkman, "relevant to the United States and other industrial nations," as well.

Mullan's thesis drew comment on both sides of the Atlantic. Writing in the Population and Development Review, Zachary Zimmer observed that "Mullan argues forcefully and convincingly against the notion that population aging has inevitable harmful economic and social effects." In the London Times, Heather Nicolson noted that "some economists now point out that there are many discrepancies in the Armageddon argument [of the demographic time bomb], which is not only misleading, but also divisive, pitting, as it does, one generation against another." But for a reviewer in the Economist, "Mr. Mullan disappoints" when it comes to the evidence for his thesis. "Many of the supposed 'myths' about ageing which he sets out to demolish turn our to be Aunt Sallies [paper tigers] that can be knocked over with a feather," this same contributor wrote. Other reviewers were more impressed by Mullan's account, however. Barbara Castle, for example, writing in the Sunday Times, noted, "It is appropriate that the new century has opened with the demolition of an old myth. This book is like one of the firework displays that illuminated millennium eve up and down the country." Castle concluded that The Imaginary Time Bomb is "highly opportune. It brushes away the unscientific assumptions that are dictating pension policy today."