Introduction
Countries are going into highly unfamiliar territory regarding aging population which is increasing rapidly. Current rise in life expectancy and reduce in fertility rates are bringing about a major change in the world age structure.
The population of people who are above the age of 60 is estimated as one billion by 2025 and around 2.5 billion by 2050, symbolizing 25% of the total population of the world (Marchildon, 2004, p. 51). The number of people who are 80 years old and above is estimated to increase from 1% to 5% of the world population between now and 2050 (Marchildon, 2004, p. 51).
The projected increase of the aging population in many countries over the next 40 years will have an exceptional effect on the countries’ health care facilities, particularly in line with distribution and needs for health care employees (Horlacher & MacKella, 2003). The distribution of health care human resources can reduce while they grow old and this result in huge population retiring and cutting their usual working hours.
All together, aging population use excessively huge amount of country’s health care facilities, hence needs for these services may perhaps rise. Increase of older adults will as well have change on the health care personnel’s skills and services which should be prepared to serve the patients and environment where such services if offered.
Effects on Economy
Given that various age groups have different requirements, the economy of the country will probably change while aging of population increase, this is caused by needs for particular services like health care, education, and pension. An ordinary strategy for examining these changes are to consider invariable age-specific activities regarding jobs, savings, and consumption, and to examine the impact of changes in these different age brackets for these significant providers to the country’s economy (Holzmann, 2009, p. 8).
Different countries have different ways to handle aging population and this may alleviate the pessimistic effects of aging. Since developed countries have rapid aging than developing or underdeveloped countries, the former can fall back on immigrant employment from the latter to make up for the retirement and aging of their own workforce. The huge groups of employed persons in rich countries are probably to be interested in the job opportunities which are produced.
Immigration to developed countries from developing countries could thus supposedly sluggish the developed countries to experience huge population of aging population and this process would relive the pressure on both types of economies. Immigration often goes with social issues and conflicts and several rich nations are now struggling with complex balance between the demands for workforce and the significance of controlling social effects of migration.
More widely, old people will need raised assistance of different kinds such as better access to medical services and income securities which are considered to be essential to them than the younger population (Vettori, 2010, p. 35).
As families have usually offered this assistance in several developing nations, progressively this assistance is less dependable, especially when women engage in employment in bigger numbers. Lesser birthrates, the propensity of children to abandon their families, extensive migration from rural to urban areas, and change in cultural beliefs concerning filial compulsions are progressively abandoning the aged bereft of the protection they previously possess.
Countries take on a life cycle viewpoint, derived from the point that individual desires and involvement are not similar in different stages in life. Particularly, the amount of expenditure to production is higher in younger people and old people and very low for the working class people. This signifies that main contributors of development of economy like collective labor distribution, output, consumption, and savings will likely to differ relying on where most people are placed in the life cycle.
Among such issues, it is well recognized that labor distribution and savings are greater among working class adults than old people, who are over 60 years of age (Hyman, 2004). A country with huge population of young people and old people is probably to face slower growth in economy than a country with higher population of working class people.
If activities of certain age groups regarding labor distribution and savings were unchanging, labor distribution and savings per capita would likely to reduce with increasing in aging population share.
Creating all other issues like migration and productivity equivalent, this creates the growth of income per capita slow and this situation seems to bring about pessimistic perspectives of critics for example Peter Peterson, who asserted that, “global aging could trigger a crisis that engulfs the world economy [and] may even threaten democracy itself” (Spence & Leipziger, 2010, p. 312).
Ken Dychtwald as well stated that, “we’re going to have a self-centered generation just sucking down all the resources” (Spence & Leipziger, 2010, p. 312) and other studies have cautioned that aging in America creates its Medicare projects and social security indefensible in future.
The evident increase in aging population, in poor countries, signifies that these countries may “age” before they become “well-off,” a state which will be very demanding than what the rich countries have experienced. For instance, implementing economically practical pension arrangements will be greatly complex for developed countries (Lloyd-Sherlock, 2010, p. 2).
Further than basic resource limitations, the prevalence of informal sector employment, in developing countries, creates the plan and accomplishment of these systems to be more complex.
Health care Needs and Costs
The aging of world population has been a major provider to the increase in occurrence of several chronic circumstances and there will be fast increase in medical care costs for people who are above 60 years of age, proposing that aging population can raise both desires and costs. Demographic tendencies also propose that countries might face a 35% decrease in population of general practitioners in several countries by 2050.
On the other hand, statistics on the health care expenses reported that aging population has been and will probably go on to be minor source of force on medical expenses compared with no-aging perspectives, even though the statement proposes that ageing itself will have produced an raise or above 35% in real per capita medical expenses in the coming 20 years (Sultz & Young, 2010, p. 23).
Another significance effect which is cause by aging population, through raising the needs for health care facilities, is that it might increase the cost of limited health care resources and therefore bringing about raise in the rate of providing medical facilities to all aging population.
The field which is mostly affected by this is health care workforce. Statistics from Hyman (2004) reported that the aging population consumes physician services more extensively than youths and it appears probably that sturdy associations between facilities and age stages are present with treatment.
Aging population has more restrictions in relation to participating in daily activities than youth or other age groups, because they are more vulnerable to some kinds of disabilities. Around 40% of people age 60 and above have restrictions in daily activities, matched up to around 5% of people age between 18 and 45 (Horlacher & MacKella, 2003).
The desires and consumption patterns of baby boomer aging population can be dissimilar from people of present aging population in significant ways and this will, as well, have impact on the needs placed on the medical care structure in the coming years.
Conclusion
Even though considering the instances at the past cannot be likely for an aging future, people can be contented in the point that several societies have adopted finely with huge growth of population in the past century.
The global economy has remarkably coped with and more significantly, take advantage of the growing population to enhance its economy. If the current policymakers make a timely start to get ready for the impacts of aging population, the expected significant change in aging population is likely to result in less adversity than several people foresee.
Generally, to conclude this discussion we can state that the pressures probably to be inserted by this aging population on health care system and social settings are real, but minimal enough to be simply controlled. The view that the elderly people are probably to cause the public health care facilities to fall down has been logically refuted several times.
The greatest risk created by aging population is that, in discarding the apocalyptic situations of people who observe aging as a main issue entailing system reform, supporters, who oppose the ideas that aging is a problem, have opinions which motivate governments and the public to be unworried and should do something now when it is simpler to do so.
References
Holzmann, R. (2009). Aging population, pension funds, and financial markets: regional perspectives and global challenges for central, eastern, and southern Europe. Washington DC: World Bank Publications.
Horlacher, D., & MacKella, L. (2003). Population Aging in Japan: Policy Lessons for Sourth-East Asia. Asia-Pacific Development Journal , 10(1): 97-122.
Hyman, S. (2004). Mental Health in an Aging Population: The NIMH Perspective. Focus, 2(2): 282-287.
Lloyd-Sherlock, P. (2010). Population ageing and international development: from generalisation to evidence. Bristol: The Policy Press.
Marchildon, G. (2004). Romanow Papers: The fiscal sustainability of health care in Canada. London: University of Toronto Press.
Spence, M., & Leipziger, D. (2010). Globalization and growth implications for a post-crisis world. Washington DC: World Bank Publications.
Sultz, H., & Young, K. (2010). Health Care USA. London: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Vettori, S. (2010). Ageing populations and changing labour markets. Burlington: Gower Publishing.