Definition
Population ageing (or population aging) occurs when the median age of a country or region rises, i.e., when people live longer and have fewer children. With the exception of 18 countries termed by the United Nations “demographic outliers” (United Nations, 2005), this process is taking place in every country and region across the globe. There are, however, significant variations across countries in terms of the degree, and the pace, of these changes (United Nations Population Division [UNDP], 2002).
Description
Population aging is a shift in the distribution of a country’s population towards older ages. This is usually reflected in an increase in the population’s mean and median age, a decline in the proportion of the population composed of children, and a rise in the proportion of the population that is elderly. Population aging is widespread across the world. It is most advanced in the most highly developed countries. However, research by the Oxford Institute of Ageing (http://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Manton, K. G. (1982). Changing concepts of morbidity and mortality in the elderly population. The Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly. Health and Society, 60(2), 183–244.
Myrskylä, M., Kohler, H. -P., & Billari, F. C. (2009). Advances in development reverse fertility declines. Nature, 460, 741–743. Retrieved March 28, 2013, from http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7256/abs/nature08230.html
Oeppen, J., & Vaupel, J. W. (2002). Broken limits to life expectancy. Science, 296(5570), 1029–1031.
Thompson, W. (2003). Encyclopedia of population (2nd ed., pp. 939–940). New York: Macmillan Reference. ISBN 0-02-865677-6.
United Nations. (2005). UN human development report 2005. United Nations Development Programme. Retrieved March 28, 2013, from http://web.archive.org/web/20080527203423/http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/hdr05_complete.pdf
United Nations Population Division. (2002). World population ageing: 1950–2050. New York: Author.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this entry
Cite this entry
Garrouste, C. (2014). Aging Population. In: Michalos, A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_59
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_59
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-0752-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-0753-5
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law