The Challenge of Population Ageing is Global

Dr Alex Kalache, Head of the World Health Organisation's Ageing and the Lifecourse Program warned of the social and economic issues associated with a fast-growing ageing population, particularly in the poorer countries of the world.

Dr Kalache outlined the current situation, explaining that there had been a revolution in world's population with no historical precedent. In spite of the developed world's preoccupation with an ageing population, this pales in comparison to the effects on less developed countries. Soon two billion of the world's population will be over 60 and 1.7 billion of these people will be in poor countries. This change is happening in the span of less than one generation.

For example, he described, it took France 115 years to double its number of older people. Brazil, on the other hand, has experienced the same change in just 19 years.

He pointed out that: The developed world became rich before it became old, but the developing countries are becoming old before they have ever become rich.'

21st Century problem

In response to the lecture, Simon Biggs, Director of King's Institute of Gerontology and Professor of Gerontology said: We are only just waking up to the scale of these changes. They will affect every aspect of adult life, from relations between the generations to those between almost every country on the globe. How we respond to adult ageing is becoming a defining problem for the 21st century.

From Media-Newswire.com