… In the 1980s, Ireland was _extremely_ homogenous. This was not a place that people came to, it was a place that people left. Today, 20% of the population was born outside the state, and Ireland has one of the highest immigration rates in the world.
Spoiler: The education and health systems in 1980 were _far_ worse than today. Like, really, there’s no comparison. They’re not exactly world leading now (in particular the health service has a constant staffing crisis) but they were really quite bad by European standards back then. When I started primary school in 1989 or so, there were more than 40 kids in my class; today there’s a cap of 30 and the average is 22 or so. Health, education, and social services were bad because we didn’t spend enough money on them.
Organisation and resourcing seem like more obvious causes of problems with US healthcare and education than _demographics_, tbh.
Spoiler: The education and health systems in 1980 were _far_ worse than today. Like, really, there’s no comparison. They’re not exactly world leading now (in particular the health service has a constant staffing crisis) but they were really quite bad by European standards back then. When I started primary school in 1989 or so, there were more than 40 kids in my class; today there’s a cap of 30 and the average is 22 or so. Health, education, and social services were bad because we didn’t spend enough money on them.
Organisation and resourcing seem like more obvious causes of problems with US healthcare and education than _demographics_, tbh.