Facing the Implications of an Aging Population

Abstract

IN April, 1950, the Seventeenth Decennial Census of the United States reported that the average person in this country was over thirty years of age. When the First Decennial Census of the United States was taken in 1790, the average person in this country was about sixteen years of age. In a dramatic way these figures summarize the aging of the population in the United States, a process which has been under way for at least as long as we have had census records. The proportion of older persons in a population can be used to differentiate the more advanced and industrialized regions of the world from the relatively backward ones. Approximately 7 per cent of the world population was sixty years old or over in 1947. In the industrialized areas of the world, including the United States, Canada, northwest and central Europe, southern Europe, and Oceania, between 10 and 14 per cent of the total population was sixty years of age or over. In areas under the initial impact of industrialization—eastern Europe, Japan, and the Near East—persons sixty years old and over constituted 6-8 per cent of the total population. In those areas which are still largely preindustrial—south-central Asia, Africa, and the Far East, excluding Japan—the proportion of the population sixty years of age and over was only 4-5 per cent. The increase in the number and proportion of older persons in the United States may then be considered but one manifestation of the world-wide demo-