Population ageing is a case where a country’s population is composed of more seniors than the children and the youth. This phenomenon happens typically when the mortality rates have reduced, and life expectancy has gone up. In the past, population ageing used to be common in first world countries but nowadays, they are common in developing countries as well. Population ageing affects the age structure of a population by raising the median age and increasing the ratio of people over 65 to children. In this article, we will talk about population ageing, and how this phenomenon affects the age structure of a population. Also, we will discuss the demographic processes that contribute to the aspect, using summarized evidence in the US, and the social implications of age structures.
Population ageing gets caused by demographic processes discussed below. Improved healthcare services in a country which reduces the death rates. With good health care, life expectancy goes up. Another demographic process that causes an ageing population is some policies in some countries that control the birth rate of its people. According to (Feng, 2016), China has been implementing the one-child policy for close to three decades in a bit to control its population size. This policy led to the country having an ageing population. Another factor is the socio-economic status of women in a country. With more women getting into studies and profession, they tend to have few children, and this lowers childbirth rates.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The US is a country that has an ageing population. This issue gets evidenced by the following reasons. According to (Statistics, Carr, Pemmarazu & Rice, 2018 ), the number of people over 65 years has been increasing exponentially over the years from 25.5 million to 31 million between the years 1980 and 1990. The information is in the Bureau of Census. Also, in US, the elderly has been suffering less from functioning problems. It has also evidenced that people with disabilities have had an increase in life expectancy. In the US, the elderly have gotten exposed to education. Hence they take up good health habits. This idea has led to decrease in cases of poor health, reducing the mortality rates hence an increase in the life expectancy age.US, being one of the most potent first world countries, has better social and economic trends which have led to a good environment for people to live and work. With good physical environment, the health standards improved which increases life expectancy level in the US, leading to a growing aging population.
Part 2
My country of choice is China. The current population of the country is 1,417,060,837, with the median age at 37.3 years. The population of the elderly that is people below 65 years is lower as compared to the population of the youth. Most people in China currently are between 45-49 years of age. ("China Population (2018) - Worldometers", 2018). From the statistics given above, I would consider the population of the country to be young. The main reason for this is because the majority of the population is below 65.
Over the next three decades, the age structure of the country is expected to change as follows. The median age will rise to 47. 8 years. Also, a high population of people will be at 55-59 years of age, and the number of the elderly will increase.
The change in the age structure will affect society in the following ways. Labour productivity will reduce. The main reason is that the majority of people in the workforce will be between 55 to 59 years which is not a very productive age. In the workforce, people tend to be very productive in their prime years which is usually up to 45 years. Also, with the change of the age structure, the ageing population will increase. With the rise of the elderly, the government will be forced to spend more on health care services at the expense of other economic activities. Eventually, this will lead to a decrease in the yearly annual per capita income.
In conclusion, population ageing has implications on the social and economic development of a country. A lot of demographic factors come into play in contributing to the growth of an ageing population. The phenomena not only affect first world countries such as the USA and Japan but developing countries too as well.
References
China Population (2018) - Worldometers. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/china-population/
Feng, W., Gu, B., & Cai, Y. (2016). The End of China's One‐Child Policy. Studies in family planning , 47 (1), 83-86.
Statistics, N., Carr, D., Pemmarazu, A., & Rice, D. (2018). America's Aging Population: Trends and Uncertainties. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK233242/
