The aging of the world population

The aging problem of the world population is becoming increasingly serious, the proportion of the elderly population is increasing, and the fertility rate is declining. At the end of 2018, there were more elderly people worldwide than infants.

According to the BBC website, at the end of 2018, there were 705 million people over the age of 65 in the world, while the number of infants and toddlers aged 0-4 was slightly lower at 680 million. In the 1960s, the global total fertility rate was close to 5, or nearly five children per woman of childbearing age, the BBC quoted World Bank data as saying. The figure has now fallen to 2.4.

Many countries face serious demographic problems, such as Japan, where 27% of the population is elderly in 2018 and the average life expectancy is 84 years, both of which are among the highest in the world. The proportion of infants aged 0-4 in the total population in Japan is about 3.85%.

There are usually two definitions of older people, those over 60 or 65, and this BBC report uses the latter criterion.