Jakarta –
As life expectancy increases and health technology advances, the number elderly predicted to continue to increase. Even now, the signs are clear. Apartments in Singapore’s Queenstown district, will feature non-slip floors and doors wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs.
In Japan, a newly built train in Toyama City has cars that are securely attached to the platform, ensuring that older people don’t trip over the gaps. In the village of Landais, in southern France, every detail is designed to help people with Alzheimer’s live as comfortably as possible, for example there are no price tags on the food you buy.
As quoted detikINET from Grid, Monday (27/2/2023) maybe that is a picture of the future, namely an aging world. According to the United Nations, by the middle of this century, the number of people aged 65 and over worldwide will be more than 1.6 billion, up from around 760 million in 2021. In other words, there will be more than twice as many elderly people in one generation.
“These are not short-term challenges like hunger or drought or war, but are natural, long-term predictable changes in the fabric of our society,” John W Rowe, an aging expert at Columbia University and former president of the International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics, told CNN.
It will change many things, from the pension system, education, jobs, housing and so on. Oh yes, according to the United Nations, there has been a change in the area with the most elderly people.
In 1980, the top 10 countries by population elderly mostly dominated by Europe. Sweden is in first place with 16% of the population aged 65 years and over. Germany, Austria, England and Norway are in the next position.
So last year, Japan became the country with the highest elderly population, almost a third of the population aged 65 and over. In 2050, Hong Kong is predicted to overtake Japan’s position with 40% of the population being in that age range.
Yes, the percentage of the elderly population will increase dramatically. In the 1980s, elderly people made up a quarter of the population in the top ten of the ‘oldest’ countries. Well by mid-century, that number will be a third.
“There’s a semblance of climate change, where the demographic shift has been going on for a long time, we knew it was coming, and we are now in the midst of it,” said Paul Irving, former head of the Center for the Future of Aging.
Watch Video “Population Declining in 60 Years, China’s Young Generation Reluctant to Have a Family“
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