Asia and Europe are home to some of the world's oldest populations, those ages 65 and above. At the top is Japan at 28 percent, followed by Italy at 23 percent. Finland, Portugal, and Greece round out the top five at just under 22 percent.
Countries with the largest percentage of total population over 65 years 2022. In 2022, Monaco was the country with the highest percentage of total population that was over the age of 65. Monaco has the oldest population of the world with 36 percent of Japanese being over 65.
While declining fertility and increasing longevity are the key drivers of population ageing globally, international migration has also contributed to changing the popu- lation age structure in some countries and regions.
Japan is well known for its aging population. In fact, it is one of the oldest societies worldwide. In 2021, people aged 65 and above made up 29% of the entire population of Japan.
Countries in Asia and the Middle East are also turning gray rapidly. The median age should increase by 16 years in South Korea, from 38 in 2010 to 53 in 2050. Double-digit increases are also expected in India, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt and Turkey.
Australia's older population
Australia's population is ageing due to increasing life expectancy and declining fertility rates. Both the number of people at the older ages is growing and older people are representing an increasing share of the total population (CEPAR 2021).
China's population is aging faster than almost all other countries in modern history. In 2050, the proportion of Chinese over retirement age will become 39 percent of the total population according to projections. China is rapidly aging at an earlier stage of its development than other countries.
Birthrates are declining in many developed countries, but in Japan the issue is particularly acute because it has the world's second highest proportion of people aged 65 and over, after the tiny state of Monaco, according to World Bank data.
Globally, there were 703 million older persons aged 65 or over in 2019. 4 Eastern and South-Eastern Asia was home to the largest number of the world's older population (260 million), followed by Europe and Northern America (over 200 million) (table 1).
Common conditions in older age include hearing loss, cataracts and refractive errors, back and neck pain and osteoarthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, depression and dementia.
At 30 June 2020, approximately 4.2 million people (16% of Australia's total population) were aged 65 and over.
Demographic drivers of population ageing
While declining fertility and increasing longevity are the key drivers of population ageing globally, international migration has also contributed to changing population age structures in some countries and regions.
Niger has the lowest average age at only 14.8 years.
Approximately 1 billion of world's population is 60 years old and above. Europe has the largest aging population in the world. The increase in average life expectancy thanks to medical advancement and an improvement in living standards has led to a decline in death rates globally.
Key points. England's population is ageing. In the next 25 years, the number of people older than 85 will double to 2.6 million. An ageing population might lead to the presumption that there will be an increased need for health and social care services.
The World's Aging Population from 1950 to 2100
In 2022, there were 771 million people aged 65+ years globally, accounting for almost 10% of the world's population. This segment has been growing at an increasing rate, and it's expected to hit 16% in 2050, and eventually 24% by 2100.
The EU-27's median age is projected to increase by 4.5 years during the next three decades, to reach 48.2 years by 2050. An increase is projected in each of the EU Member States, with the median age of the population projected to rise by more than 8.0 years in Poland, Slovakia and Malta.
Korea is becoming an aging society at a fast rate. It is expected it will become a super-aging society by 2025 where more than 20 percent of the total population is aged 65 years and older. In 2021, the country's birthrate dropped to 0.81 percent.
At 23 percent, Italy has the highest share of citizens aged 65 or over in the entire European Union. Aging populations cause an economic imbalance, with more older people claiming pensions and other state benefits, with not enough younger people to pay taxes to fund those benefits.
Causes. Japan's birth and death rates (The drop in 1966 was due to it being a hinoe uma: a year which is viewed as ill-omened in the Japanese Zodiac.) The aging of the Japanese population is a result of one of the world's lowest fertility rates combined with a high life expectancy.
Since the beginning of the 1990s, social and demographic changes in the Russian Federation, stemming from under the Soviet Union, led the country towards an aging population, often described as in media as a "demographic crisis".
The main cause of South Korea's aging is low fertility. Decreased fertility rates tend to cause lower marriage rates, more delayed marriages, and increased aging.
Agriculture can be a key to understand the Chinese son preference history. For thousands of years in China, most of the Chinese preferred sons rather than daughters because majority of males have more ability to earn more than girls, especially in agrarian economies.