academic-english-growing-grey(已修改)
2025-07-21 12:44 本頁面
【正文】 Growing greyJohn I. Clarke and Andrew CravenThe populationof the world is ageing. The proportion of elderly people in both developed and developing countries is growing. This article considers the statistics and some of the impacts of this demographic phenomenon. It is relevant to anyone studying population change.We live in an ageist society, in which people are discriminated against on the grounds of age. This is curious, because most countries in the world have ageing populations, with a growing proportion of old people who will have an increasing impact upon all aspects of polity, society and economy.1 Who are the old?There are no sharp thresholds separating the old and the very old (sometimes less harshly called elderly and very elderly) from the rest of the population. Internationally, the UN Population Division defines the old as those aged 60 and over (United Nations, 2005). In 2005 there were about 673 million old people according to this definition一10% of the world population In the developing world this was 8% of the population and in the developed world 20%. The rather low UN threshold of 60 makes sense in the developing world, as people have lower life expectancies there, but in the developed world as a whole those aged 60 and over already outnumber children aged 014.The widely cited data sheets of the Population Reference Bureau (Haute, 2005) use the higher threshold of 65 and over as a definition of old age. According to this, about 7% of the world population were old in 2005: only 5% of the developing world, but 15% of the developed world. In the UK we have tended, rather idiosyncratically, to define old people as those of pensionable age65 and over for men and 60 and over for women. This is despite the fact that women tend to outlive men. At the 2001 census % of the UK population, or million people, fell into this category. Fortunately, the gender difference in the definition is being replaced by a general move to 65 and over.2 Who are the very old?Demographers often distinguish between the old and the very old, because they differ considerably in their activities, health, medical and housing needs, independence, social integration/segregation and in their contributions to society. Even access to the Internet tends to vary by age. Again, there is no clear cut threshold for the rapidly growing very old population. Seventy five and over is monly used in the UK and other developed countries, and 85 and over for the increasing numbers of very, very old. However, the UN Population Division provides data for an intermediate age groupthe oldestold aged 80 and over. In 2005 this group accounted for only % of the world population, and more than half of them were in the developed world where less than a fifth of the world p
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