The Religious Consultation
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Agence France-Presse, July 17, 2005 'Grandfather
boom' as world population heads for nine billion
DATELINE: PARIS -- A "grandfather boom" is rippling through the world's population as it heads for the nine billion mark by 2050, putting pressure on health care and pension systems, international population experts will hear this week. "In most Western countries, 2005 marks a new demographic shock: the grandfather boom will introduce a delicate balance between the working and non-working," said Catherine Rollet, president of the organising committee of the conference of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP). But the West is not alone in suffering from the demographic timebomb. "The aging of the population has started to affect the developing countries: it will be one of the most important changes of the 21st century," Rollet said ahead of the 25th IUSSP conference, held every four years. The four-day conference of 2,000 demographers, economists, geographers and sociologists from 110 countries will be held in the city of Tours in central France starting on Tuesday. This month the world's population crossed the 6.5 billion mark. But the increase has slowed from a two percent annual rise in the 1960s to 1.2 percent today -- with the nine-billion-mark expected to be cracked around 2050. "That means three billion more than today. That's a lot but it's manageable," Rollet told AFP. "We must think about how we share the world's resources to be able to satisfy the demands of the three billion extra people" said Rollet. "This growth is going to occur particularly in the countries of Asia and Africa which need to be supported and to develop much more than they have during the 20th century." "Even though (world population growth) is slowing, it remains strong, and rapid urbanisation, particuarly in developing countries, can only increase the pressure on the environment and very likely increase existing inequalities in consumption and well-being" the IUSSP said in a statement. HIV/AIDS will also be a major issue at the conference. Some three million people died of AIDS related illnesses in 2004 while five million people became infected -- taking the global total to 40 million. Life expectancy in southern Africa, which has the highest HIV infection rate in the world, has fallen from 62 years in 1990-95 to 48 years in 2000-2005. It is set to drop further -- to 43 years over the next decade -- before a slow recovery starts. Migration will be another feature of the 21st century which involves 150 million people moving from one country to the other per year -- a figure likely to increase as countries face falls in their workforces due to an aging population. The aging process will challenge national budgets -- as well as private arrangements for health care and retirement -- as expenditures increase for a large non-working population with a falling working population. Fernando Gil Alonso from the Centre of Demographic Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona said at the European level the ratio of the number of retired people to those employed will start increasing from 2010, when the baby boom generation from the 1950s reach retirement age. Without policy changes, this ratio is expected to rise from 54.5 to 90.9 retired people per 100 employed people over the next 50 years -- "a significant increase that would put pension schemes under pressure," Alonso said in a research paper to be presented in Tours. Moneer Alam of the Institute of Economic Growth in Delhi and Mehtab Karim of the Aga Khan University in Karachi said in another conference paper that the health systems in India and Pakistan will come under increasing pressures over coming decades as the population increases in the plus 60 age group. << Agence France-Presse -- 7/17/05 >>
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