Census Bureau Reports on Global Aging

Attention retirement communities – Worldwide, the number of people 65 or older is expected to grow from 506 million to 1.3 billion over the next 30 years. See what you know about worldwide aging.

Palm Coast, FL – July 20, 2009 – Whenever news about aging comes up, Floridians take notice. Historically, Florida’s growth has been driven largely by the in-migration of retirees from other states and increasingly from other countries as well. That’s why Floridians should take a good look at the U.S. Census Bureau’s latest report on global aging. See what you know about worldwide population aging in the early twenty-first century. First take the quiz, then read the report highlights below.
 
Quiz:20 Questions about Global Aging
 
Answers appear below.
 
From: An Aging World: 2008 U.S. Census Bureau
 
1. True or false? The world’s children under age 5 outnumber people aged 65 and over.
 
2. The world’s older population (65 and over) is increasing by approximately how many people each month in 2008?
a. 75,000
b. 350,000
c. 600,000
d. 870,000
 
3. Which of the world’s developing regions has the highest percentage of older people?
a. Africa
b. Latin America
c. The Caribbean
d. Asia
 
4. China has the world’s largest total population (more than 1.3 billion). Which country has the world’s largest older population?
a. China
b. Germany
c. Russia
d. India
 
5. True or false? More than half of the world’s older people live in the industrialized nations of Europe, North America, Japan, and Australia.
 
6. Which country has the world’s highest percentage of older people in 2008?
a. Sweden
b. Japan
c. Spain
d. Italy
 
7. True or false? Current demographic projections suggest that 35 percent of all people in the United States will be at least 65 years of age by the year 2050.
 
8. True or false? The number of the world’s “oldest old” (people 80 and over) is growing more rapidly than the older (65 and over) population as a whole.
 
9. Japan has the highest life expectancy among the major countries of the world. How many years can a Japanese baby born in 2008 expect to live, on average?
a. 70 years
b. 75 years
c. 82 years
d. 90 years
 
10. True or false? Today, average life expectancy at birth is less than 45 years in some countries.
 
11. What are the leading killers of older people in Europe and North America?
a. Cancers
b. Circulatory diseases
c. Respiratory diseases
d. Accidents
 
12. True or false? The percentage of older people in rural areas is generally lower than in large cities.
 
13. There are more older widows than widowers in virtually all countries because:
a. Women live longer than men.
b. Women typically marry men older than themselves.
c. Men are more likely to remarry after divorce or the death of a spouse.
d. All of the above.
 
14. True or false? Sex ratios at older ages (i.e., the number of older men per 100 older women) usually are 90 or greater.
 
15. In developed countries, recent increases in labor force participation rates of older workers are due to changing work patterns of:
a. Men
b. Women
c. Men and women
 
16. What proportion of the world’s countries have a public old-age security program?
a. All
b. Three-fourths
c. One-half
d. One-fourth
 
17. True or false? In most countries, international migration has little effect on the overall population age structure.
 
18. In which country are older people least likely to live alone?
a. The Philippines
b. Hungary
c. Canada
d. Denmark
 
19. True or false? In developing countries, older men are more likely than older women to be illiterate.
 
20. True or false? In any country, it is almost impossible to have population aging and a decline in total population size at the same time.
 
Answers
 
1. True. Although the world’s population is aging, children still outnumber older people as of 2008. Projections indicate, however, that in fewer than 10 years, older people will outnumber children for the first time in history.
 
2. d. The estimated change in the total size of the world=s older population between July 2007 and July 2008 was more than 10.4 million people, an average of 870,000 each month.
 
3. c. The Caribbean, with 7.8 percent of all people aged 65 and over in 2008. Corresponding figures for other regions are Latin America, 6.4 percent; Asia (excluding Japan), 6.2 percent; and Africa, 3.3 percent.
 
4. a. China also has the largest older population, numbering 106 million in 2008.
 
5. False. Although industrialized nations have higher percentages of older people than do most developing countries, 62 percent of all people aged 65 and over now live in the developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania.
 
6. b. Japan, with 22 percent of its population aged 65 or over, has recently supplanted Italy as the world’s oldest major country.
 
7. False. Although the United States will age rapidly when the Baby Boomers (people born between 1946 and 1964) begin to reach age 65 after the year 2010, the percentage of the population aged 65 and over in the year 2050 is projected to be 20 percent (compared with 12 percent today).
 
8. True. The oldest old are the fastest-growing component of many national populations. The world’s growth rate for the 80-and-over population from 2007 to 2008 was 4.3 percent, while that of the world=s older (65 and over) population as a whole was 2.1 percent (compared with 1.2 percent for the total [all ages] population).
 
9. c. 82 years, up from about 52 in 1947.
10. True. In some African countries (e.g., Malawi, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is particularly devastating, average life expectancy at birth is less than 45 years.
 
11. b. Circulatory diseases (especially heart disease and stroke) typically are the leading cause of death as reported by the World Health Organization. In the United States in 2004, heart disease was the leading cause of death in the 65-and-over age group, accounting for 30 percent of all deaths. This percentage, however, has declined in recent decades (it was 44 percent in the United States in 1980).
 
12. False. Rural-to-urban migration tends to lower the percentage of younger adults in rural areas and correspondingly raise the percentage of older residents.
 
13. d. All of the above.
 
14. False. Sex ratios at older ages are 90 or above in about 20 percent of the world’s countries/areas. Sex ratios at older ages are 80 or below in a majority of countries/ areas and 50 or below in parts of the former Soviet Union.
 
15. c. From the late 1960s until the 1990s, labor force participation rates of older men in most developed countries were declining, whereas those for women were often increasing. More recently, activity rates for men also have begun to increase.
 
16. b. As of 2004, 167 countries/ areas of the world (74 percent) reported having some form of an old age/disability/survivors program. In many cases, program coverage is limited to certain occupational subgroups.
 
17. True. International migration does not play a major role in the aging process of most countries, but it can be important in small populations that have experienced a combination of emigration of working-aged adults, immigration of older retirees from other countries, and/or return migration of former emigrants.
 
18. a. The Philippines. The percentage of older people living alone in developing countries is usually much lower than that in developed countries; levels in the latter may exceed 40 percent.
 
19. False. Older women are less likely to be literate. For example, data from China’s 2000 census revealed that 26 percent of older women could read and write, compared with 66 percent of older men.
 
20. False. Total population size in at least 11 countries is projected to decline from today’s levels by at least 1 million people by 2050; in some countries (e.g., Japan, Russia, and the Ukraine) the decline has already begun. All of these nations are aging, and the combination of population aging and population decline is historically unprecedented.
 
 
The average age of the world’s population is increasing at an unprecedented rate. The number of people worldwide 65 and older is estimated at 506 million as of midyear 2008; by 2040, that number will hit 1.3 billion. Thus, in just over 30 years, the proportion of older people will double from 7 percent to 14 percent of the total world population, according to a new report, An Aging World: 2008.   [Full Report]
The report examines the demographic and socioeconomic trends accompanying this phenomenon. It was commissioned by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health and produced by the U.S. Census Bureau.
“The world’s population of people over age 65 is growing rapidly, and with it will come a number of challenges and opportunities,” said NIA Director Dr. Richard J. Hodes. “NIA and our partners at the Census Bureau are committed to providing the best data possible so that we can better understand the course of population aging and its implications.”
An Aging World: 2008 examines nine international population trends identified in 2007 by the NIA and the U.S. Department of State (“Why Population Aging Matters: A Global Perspective”). The report also contains detailed information on life expectancy, health, disability, gender balance, marital status, living arrangements, education and literacy, labor force participation and retirement and pensions among older people around the world.
“Aging is affecting every country in every part of the world,” said Richard Suzman, director of NIA’s Division of Behavioral and Social Research. “While there are important differences between developed and developing countries, global aging is changing the social and economic nature of the planet and presenting difficult challenges. The fact that, within 10 years, for the first time in human history there will be more people 65 and older than children under 5 in the world underlines the extent of this change.”
Highlights of the report include:
·         While developed nations have relatively high proportions of people 65 and older, the most rapid increases in the older population are in the developing world. The current rate of growth of the older population in developing countries is more than double that in developed countries, and is also double that of the total world population.
 
·         As of 2008, 62 percent (313 million) of the world’s people 65 and older lived in developing countries. By 2040, today’s developing countries are likely to be home to more than 1 billion people 65 and over, 76 percent of the projected world total.
·         The oldest old, people 80 and older, are the fastest growing portion of the total population in many countries. Globally, the oldest old population is projected to increase 233 percent between 2008 and 2040, compared with 160 percent for the population 65 and over and 33 percent for the total population of all ages.
 
·         The 65-and-older population in China and India alone numbered 166 million in 2008, nearly one-third of the world’s total. Issues related to population aging in the world’s two most populous nations will be accentuated in the coming decades as the absolute number climbs to 551 million in 2040 (329 million in China and 222 million in India).
 
·         Childlessness among European and U.S. women 65 and older in 2005 ranged from less than 8 percent in the Czech Republic to 15 percent in Austria and Italy. Twenty percent of women 40–44 in the United States in 2006 had no biologic children. These data raise questions about the provision of care when this cohort reaches advanced ages.
 
·         Older people provide support to as well as receive support from their children. In countries with well-established pension and social security programs, many older adults provide shelter and financial assistance to their adult children and grandchildren. Older people in developing countries, although less likely to provide financial help to children, make substantial contributions to family well-being through such activities as household maintenance and grandchild care.
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