Challenge of Ageing Population

After the second World War ended, people began to celebrate the countries success and due to this, more children were born. At the time, the hospitals were filled with newly born babies and the birth rate was increasing rapidly. Back then, there was a smaller life expectancy so it was believed that there wasn't going to be as many older members of the community as there actually is and now that more medicines and health care was introduced, people are living to older ages. Although this may seem great, it is harder for the elderly to get the right treatment so as a result, the taxes have been increased which links back to earlier where people are starting to lose more money. Currently, this is an issue as the population pyramid is unbalanced, however, I believe this will resolve in time as the people who were born during the 'baby boom' will pass

In the last few centuries, Europe has experienced major changes both in its population makeup and number. Be that as it may, in the last two decades, it has been faced with an unprecedented decline in population growth while struggling with the issue of an aging population. Indeed, from Helsinki to Lisbon, the birth rate has fallen dramatically in recent years. It has fallen so much so that most countries have put together some form of policies to help mitigate what is perceived as a serious demographic crisis in european capitals. Those policies have yielded different results. While some countries like France are now experiencing a slow growth rate as a result of those policies, others in the likes of Germany are forced to still deal with an ever declining population. In this paper, I will be analyzing, comparing, and contrasting the policies in both countries.

There are many different problems that an ageing population creates for society. There are many reasons why there is an increase in the ageing population, as Item B states “In common with many western societies, the United Kingdom has an ageing population. Rising life expectancy and a relatively low birth rate have meant that the average age of the population is rising”. Also the decline in fertility has led to an increased amount of people who are over the age of 65 and this poses many different issues within society.

In Chapter 15: Aging and the Elderly, the U.S. birth rate has been falling for more than a century. It happens because children are more likely to survive into adulthood, and so couple have fewer children. As more women work outside the home, they choose to have fewer children. Greater material wealth and advances in medicine have raised living standards so that people benefit from better housing and more nutrition. The oldest segment of the U.S. population, is increasing rapidly and is already forty times greater than in 1900.

The demographic transition is a three-stage model of population growth in Europe. In the first stage there is a stable population because birth and death rates are both high. The second stage happens as mortality rates begin to slowly decline, but birth rates stay high. When this stage happens, there is fast population growth. During the third stage, the population is more stable as both birth and death rates are low and are more or less balanced. In more recent years, a fourth stage as been brought on by Anti-Malthusians. During this stage, population shrinkage occurs because the deaths begin to outnumber the births. Europe provides a great example to the theory of demographic transition. After speedy population growth of stage two, Europe settled at stage three with a stable population. It is currently in stage four with a shrinking population. In most European nations there are lesser births than deaths which could ultimately create other social problems.

At present time, Canada is facing a significant demographic transition in its population. From last century, the decrease in mortality, fertility and the increase in life expectancy lead to vast changes in Canada’s population. Aging of Canada’s population becomes more and more severer. This research paper is to study the correlation between demographic transition in Canada and how does the transition impact on economic growth. To be more specifically, demographics variables can include life expectancy, fertility and mortality; economic growth variables can include labour force and public expenditure.

In his article “Will America Grow Up Before It Grows Old?” P.G. Peterson writes about the challenges that U.S. population will be experiencing by 2050. (Peterson, 2015) P.G. Peterson argues that the proportion of the aging population to the younger population will impact the allocation of the scarce resources. (Peterson, 2015) I agree with P.G. Peterson that the young and old will be forced to compete for the resources.

Throughout the world and throughout history, the young have always outnumbered the elderly. Over the next 40 years this will change. The population over 60 will grow by one billion to a total of two billion. For the first time in human history there will be more people over 60 than under 15. One in every five people will be elderly. In 1950 there were twelve working people for every elderly person, today nine working people and in 2050 4 working people. More money will go out and less money will come in. (HelpAge International, 2014) Economies will face a change in terms of growth, savings, debts, investment, consumption, labor markets, pensions and taxation. Social impacts will consist of changes in family composition, living arrangements,

This is the second stage of the Theory of Demographic Transition. In this stage, birth rate does not come down from the High Stationary Stage but death rate gets very much declined, which triggers very rapid growth in the population change. In this stage, the nation provides the better public health services to the people so that the people will not depart from the life so rapidly, and the declining in infant

From 1970 to the year 2000, the world's over-60 population is projected to increase by more than 90 percent" . This is an astonishing number, seeming how the total population was predicted to grow by less than 75 percent . "The most prominent feature of the looming shift in the composition of the working-age population is, of course, its increasing age" . It is hard to say what will happen when suddenly there will be an abundance of older people who are preparing to retire.

However, better healthcare and protection from government result in rising age expectancy, which is a double-edged sword as on one hand, people live longer as shown in report (Friedland and Summer, 2005, Fig 1-2) and on the other hand, the proportion of aging population increases if the younger generation are not reproducing enough, and this is exactly the trend now in developed nations. In the

Over the period of the demographic transition, declines in fertility and mortality cause important changes in a population 's age composition. In general, countries in the early stages of the transition have a younger age structure than countries in the later stages. A changing age distribution has significant social and economic consequences, e.g. for the allocation of education, healthcare and social security resources to the young and old. Assessments of this impact often rely on the so-called age-dependency ratio (DR) that summarizes key changes in the

The world’s population is ageing rapidly. Between 2000 and 2050, the proportion of the world's older adults is estimated to double from about 11% to 22%. In absolute terms, this is an expected increase from 605 million to 2 billion people over the age of 60.

A drop in net immigration to the United States is a key factor that has contributed to the aging of the US population. According to the U.S. census Bureau, “there have been a drop in immigration levels in the United States”, which, mean that a smaller share of U.S. population growth can directly attribute to immigration similar to natural increase these can also be related to jobs losses that are normally filled by immigrants such as construction jobs, and manufacturing jobs. Declining fertility rates are also a key factor in the United States. “In the past the 18 and under have exceeded the 65 and older, but now have declined by 190,000 per the Census Bureau in 2010 and 2011 while the elderly have increased by 917,000. Working-age adults, and those in childbearing ages, is also down”. There is also a decline in fertility rates as well, they estimated 4 billion birth between 2010 and 2011 which is down from the 4.2 that was between 2005 and 2006.

Similarly, Findlay and Findlay (1987:14-19) suggested high mortality rates in less developed countries to be showing effects of poor nutrition, health service, environment and education, and high rates of poverty. Thus, ignorance of such data is unacceptable, as there is a danger of failure to recognise and solve underlying problems within a country, like poverty, unemployment, inadequacy of public health provision and so on, what would not only lead to decline of population but bring about social unrests and reduce economic effectiveness. Various attempts with different results have been made by governments in order to reduce mortality throughout the history: Compulsory health insurance (eg Germany 1883, Austria 1888) subsidization of health societies (eg Italy 1886), complete health care (eg USSR) (Thomlison, 1965:401-2), attempts to reduce infant and child mortality (eg Philippines, 1975-77 – with focus on provision of basic MCH/FP services and spread of health-related information (Williamson, 1982)) or provision of free school milk in Britain. Many national policies have been oriented at stimulating population growth – pronatalist policies, like in Nazi Germany or Communist USSR, or providing services, like schooling, economic and noneconomic rewards for families; or G.I Bill of Rights that resulted in baby boom during post-WWll years in US.