GETTING OLDER

The world's population is getting older. In 1970, the global median age was 20. Fifty years later it had increased to 30. There are still “youthful” countries such as Niger with a median age of 14.5 years of age, a figure that has held constant over the last two decades. Compare that with Japan's 48.4. The ageing of the population is prevalent in countries with very low birth rates, low immigration rates and/or high emigration rates. Table 7.1 highlights the super-aged countries with a large percentage of the population aged over 65. They include Japan (29.9 per cent) and Italy (24.1 per cent). Japan's median age in 1950 was 20.2 and has effectively doubled. Italy's median age almost doubled from 27.5 in 1950 to 46.8 in 2020. Aged countries now include most of East Asia, Europe, North and South America and Australasia. While most rich countries are ageing, some are ageing faster than others, with East Asian and European countries ageing faster than the USA. By 2050, South Korea will have 39.6 per cent of people aged over 65 to overtake Japan's predicted 37.5 per cent. By 2050, almost 33 per cent of the population of Germany and Italy will be aged over 65, but only 21 per cent for the USA.

From 1950 to 2100, the world's population aged over 65 will rise from 5 per cent to over 16 per cent. Across the globe, population profiles are shifting from population pyramids to population pillars (see Figure 7.1). In the case of Japan, the profile has changed from a broad-based pyramid to an overhanging cliff. The country's population pyramid is shown in Figure 7.2.

Countries with the highest old-age dependency ratio – the number of people older than 64 relative to the number in the working population aged 14–64 – include Japan at 50.9 per cent, Italy at 37.1 and Finland at 37.1. Across much of Europe the figure rarely dips below 30 per cent whereas in 1950 it rarely peaked above 15 per cent.