Ageing in the 21st century”

The population of 60-plus people in India is set to treble by 2050, when the country will have 315 million 60-plus people, comprising around 20 per cent of its population. The number of elderly at present is around 90 million, about 8 per cent of the population.

A new UNFPA-HelpAge International Report titled, “Ageing in the 21st century” released yesterday on the occasion of International Day for the Elderly, forewarns Indian policy makers on the consequences of an ageing society by saying that India is already home to the world’s second largest ageing population.

Contrastingly, China will have almost 33.9 per cent of its people in the 60-plus range as against 13.3 per cent today. Japan would still remain the oldest country in the world with its distinction of being the only nation globally where over 30 per cent of the people are already 60-plus.

The report says that by 2050, there will be more people in the above-60 age group than in under-15 by 2050. The number of centenarians alone will rise from 3,15,600 today to 3.2 million by 2050, requiring new interventions.

India has 11,000 to 22,000 centenarians today. It will have more 100-plus people than China by 2050, says the report. It also says that the number of older persons globally is projected to reach one billion in less than 10 years and by 2050, nearly 80 pc of the world’s older persons would be living in developing countries, with India and China contributing to over one-third.

The report warns India that “between 2000 and 2050, overall population of India is anticipated to grow by 60 pc while the population of elderly and above would shoot up by about 360 per cent. By 2026, the elderly population in India will be 173 million.”

A countrywide analysis shows that today, around 75 per cent of the Indian elderly live in rural areas of which over 48 per cent are women and of this, 55 per cent are widows. “This calls for targeted action,” the report adds.

Another challenge for India is-one-fifth of the elderly live alone or with their spouse. This proportion has registered a sharp increase over the past two decades and is more evident in case of elderly women.

“The percentage of elderly living alone or with spouse is as high as 45 pc in Tamil Nadu. Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab and Kerala are other states that have a high proportion of elderly living alone or with spouse. This indicates that with the demographic transition and youth migrating out for economic reasons, there will be a drastic change in living arrangement of elderly in rural and urban areas of the country,” the report adds.

It says that 12 million elderly out of 90 million in India are blind and 65 pc suffer from chronic diseases requiring proper health coverage. 

GREY MATTERS

Elderly population will be 315 million, constituting 20% of the total population by 2050

The number of above-60 year women would exceed the number of elderly men by 18.4 million

Around 90% elderly have to work for a livelihood; majority of them are illiterate

12 million Indian elderly are blind

The number of old persons will be 1 billion over the next 10 years world over; India and China will house one-third of them