The number of elderly people in the world will exceed the number of children under 5 within 10 years, placing greater demands on a shrinking number of young caregivers and taxing social insurance programs, according to a report by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The number of people older than 65 will double to 14 percent from 7 percent of the world's population in the next 30 years, rising to 1.4 billion by 2040 from about 506 million in the middle of last year, said the report, "An Aging World: 2008," commissioned by the U.S. National Institute on Aging.
The most rapid rise in the elderly population is taking place in developing countries, where the increase in the number of people 65 and older is more than double the rate in developed nations. Last year, 313 million, or 62 percent, of the world's elderly lived in developing countries, a number that is projected to rise to more than 1 billion, 76 percent of the world's 65-and-over population, the report said.
"Low fertility rates, extended life expectancy and better health conditions and care" are the driving forces of a global trend, said Wan He, a Census Bureau demographer and co-author of the report. The problem for developing countries is they have far fewer resources, she said.
Caretaking Challenge
"The challenges are similar in both developed and developing countries in the sense that with an aging society, caretaking will be a serious challenge for the society and the family," He said in a telephone interview today. "Who will contribute to social insurance? And, in the family there will be fewer and fewer children available to take care of the older parents."
Drugmakers including New York-based Pfizer Inc. may benefit from an aging population, said Thomas Lee, chief U.S. equity strategist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. Other beneficiaries may include Houston-based Service Corp. International, the biggest U.S. funeral-home and cemetery owner, and Sunrise Senior Living Inc., based in McLean, Virginia, which runs retirement communities, he said.
"It's going to be very good for businesses that benefit from death," Lee said. "A rising percentage of elderly is going to increase demand for health care because so much health care service is done near the end of life."
Business at banks and asset managers may also improve, Lee said.
"At least in developed markets, the elderly population tends to have more wealth," he said. A higher average age is "probably good for financials because it does mean higher savings."
Compounding Troubles
Changes in family structure and social organization will compound the problem of caring for the elderly in developing countries, said Margaret Wallhagen, director of the John A. Hartford Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence at the University of California, San Francisco.
"The extended family has been an extremely important part of maintaining the elderly in their homes," Wallhagen said today in a telephone interview. "Because of the constraints and crises these countries have faced, extended family members have moved away, leaving the elderly more on their own."
In African countries that have been hit hard by the AIDS epidemic, deaths from the condition have been centered among young and middle-aged people, accelerating the aging of the population, He said.
Impact of AIDS
"The older people are still living but the middle-aged and younger population have died of HIV-AIDS," she said.
The proportion of the elderly in the overall population is accelerating rapidly among some newly developing countries, the report found.
"It took France more than 100 years to go from 7 percent to 14 percent," He said. South Korea and Singapore will accomplish that doubling in 19 years or less by sometime in the next decade, she said.
"They will experience this doubling in the shortest time in human history," He said.
While the world's two most populous countries, China and India, are lagging behind many other developing countries in the rate at which their elderly population grows, they are moving in the same direction, He said.
"China and India, the two population billionaires, are not as old as other developed countries but they have huge numbers of older people and within a single generation they are going to age rapidly," she said.
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