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UNITED NATIONS - The number of people 60 years and older may nearly triple to 2 billion by 2050, making up nearly a quarter of the expected global population of 9.2 billion, a UN report said today.
The 2006 revision of "World Population Prospects" by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division predicts the global population will swell by 2.5 billion from the current 6.7 billion during the next 43 years.
"While the population at the global level is on track to surpass 9 billion by 2050 and hence continues to increase, that of the more developed regions is hardly changing and will age very markedly," the report said.
Most of the growth and youth in the world is expected to come from poorer nations.
"Among the rest of the developing countries, rapid population aging is forecast," the report said.
Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, executive director of the UN Population Fund, said the world faces the challenge of meeting the needs of older people while looking after the young, particularly in developing countries.
"Population aging is a 20th-century phenomenon resulting partly from improvements in life expectancy," she said.
The report said a prevailing trend in developed countries of not enough babies being born to replace people dying would continue, while fertility in the least developed nations would decline but still remain higher than the rest of the world.
It predicted the population of the developed world was expected to remain almost unchanged during the next 43 years at 1.2 billion.
"Rich nations concerned with too-low fertility should emulate neighbours that have successfully introduced family friendly policies to make careers and parenthood more compatible," Obaid said.
"They should create an environment that makes it easier for men and women to combine parenthood and careers. No one should be forced to choose one or the other."
Despite immigration barriers, migration from poor to rich nations is expected to make up for labour shortages in the developed world, the report said.
Still, the populations of 46 countries, including Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, most of the former Soviet states and several small island states are expected to be lower in 2050 than what they are now.
But the populations of Afghanistan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Niger, East Timor and Uganda are forecast to triple in the next four decades.
The report said India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, the United States, Bangladesh and China would account for half of the world's 2.5 billion extra people by 2050.
- REUTERS
