An Aging World — Trends by the Numbers
The U.S. Census Bureau recently released it’s updated international population report, An Aging World: 2015. Lots of interesting numbers in this 135 page report (plus tables), with analysis indicating trends. To highlight a few:
- Growth of world’s older population will continue to outpace that of younger population over the next 35 years
- Asia leads world regions in speed of aging and size of older population
- Africa is exceptionally young in 2015 and will remain so in the foreseeable future
- World’s oldest countries are mostly in Europe, but some Asian and Latin American countries are quickly catching up
- Some countries will experience a quadrupling of their older population from 2015 to 2050
The document compares India and China as two “population giants” that are on “drastically different paths of population aging.”
In 2015, the total population of China stands at 1.4 billion, with India close behind at 1.3 billion. It is projected that 10 years from now, by 2025, India will surpass China and become the most populous country in the world. . . . Although both China and India introduced family planning programs decades ago [graphic available in report], the fertility level in India has remained well above the level in China since the 1970s. By 2030, after India is projected to have overtaken China in terms of total population, 8.8 percent of India’s population will be aged 65 and older, or 128.9 million people. In contrast, in the same year, China will have nearly twice the number and share of older population (238.8 million and 17.2 percent).
The report also introduced me to a new acronym – HALE – for “healthy life expectancy,” as an important measurement of population health across the life span. For example, while among European countries France has the longest life expectancy, Norway has significantly better projections for healthy life expectancy, the number of years older adults can be expected to live without activity limitations.