“There are different ways of defining older people, while public perception as to what constitutes being old can differ widely. Statistics on ageing generally categorise older people as being above a certain age threshold. Indeed, the United Nations (UN) noted in World Population Ageing 2019 that older people are commonly defined as those aged 60 or 65 years or more, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) states that older people in developed world economies are commonly defined as those aged 65 years or more. The WHO also uses an alternative definition, whereby an older person is defined as someone who has passed the median life expectancy at birth.”
Source: Eurostat. 2020. Ageing Europe: Looking at the lives of older people in the EU.
“Globally, there were 703 million persons aged 65 or over in 2019. 1 The region of Eastern and South-Eastern Asia was home to the largest number of older persons (261 million), followed by Europe and Northern America (over 200 million) (table I.1).
“Over the next three decades, the number of older persons worldwide is projected to more than double, reaching more than 1.5 billion persons in 2050. All regions will see an increase in the size of the older population between 2019 and 2050. The largest increase (312 million) is projected to occur in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, growing from 261 million in 2019 to 573 million in 2050. The fastest increase in the number of older persons is expected in Northern Africa and Western Asia, rising from 29 million in 2019 to 96 million in 2050 (an increase of 226 per cent). The second fastest increase is projected for sub-Saharan Africa, where the population aged 65 or over could grow from 32 million in 2019 to 101 million in 2050 (218 per cent). By contrast, the increase is expected to be relatively small in Australia and New Zealand (84 per cent) and in Europe and Northern America (48 per cent), regions where the population is already significantly older than in other parts of the world.”
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2020). World Population Ageing 2019 (ST/ESA/SER.A/444).
“In recent decades, the share of the population aged 65 years and over has nearly doubled on average across OECD countries, increasing from less than 9% in 1960 to more than 17% in 2019. Declining fertility rates and longer life expectancy (see indicator ‘Life expectancy by sex and education level’ in Chapter 3) have meant that older people make up an increasing proportion of the population in OECD countries. Across the 38 OECD member countries, more than 232 million people were aged 65 and over in 2019, including more than 62 million who were at least 80 years old. As ageing represents one of the key risk factors for serious illness or death from COVID‑19, the pandemic has driven home the need to ensure that health systems are prepared to adapt to the changing needs of an older population.
“Across OECD member countries on average, the share of the population aged 65 and over is projected to continue increasing in the coming decades, rising from 17.3% in 2019 to 26.7% by 2050 (Figure 10.1). In five countries (Italy, Portugal, Greece, Japan and Korea), the share of the population aged 65 and over will exceed one‑third by 2050. At the other end of the spectrum, the population aged 65 and over in Israel, Mexico, Australia and Colombia will represent less than 20% of the population in 2050, owing to higher fertility and migration rates.”
Source: OECD (2021), Health at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ae3016b9-en.
“While the rise in the population aged 65 and over has been striking across OECD countries, the increase has been particularly rapid among the oldest group – people aged 80 and over. Between 2019 and 2050, the share of the population aged 80 and over will more than double on average across OECD member countries, from 4.6% to 9.8%. At least one in ten people will be 80 and over in nearly half (18) of these countries by 2050, while in five (Portugal, Greece, Italy, Korea and Japan), more than one in eight people will be 80 and over.”
Source: OECD (2021), Health at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ae3016b9-en.
“Not only has the absolute number of older persons increased globally, but also the share of older persons in the total population has increased and is projected to continue to grow in all regions. The percentage of persons aged 65 or over worldwide has grown from 6 per cent in 1990 to 9 per cent in 2019 and is projected to increase further to 16 per cent in 2050 (figure I.1).
“Although the number of persons aged 65 or over in sub-Saharan Africa will triple over the next 30 years, it will remain relatively small as a share of the total population; sub-Saharan Africa is still relatively young, with close to half of its population under age 20. The share of older persons in the population of sub-Saharan Africa has remained stable since 1990 (around 3 per cent) and is expected to see only small increments between now and 2050 (rising to 5 per cent of the total).
“Some regions, including Australia and New Zealand, Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, and Europe and Northern America, have seen rapid increases in the proportion of older persons in the total population over the past 30 years and can expect to see this share continue to increase until 2050. The increase will be particularly rapid in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia. Although other regions have experienced modest increments in the share of population at ages 65 and older since 1990, it is expected that the share of older persons in those regions will at least double by 2050.”
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division (2020). World Population Ageing 2019 (ST/ESA/SER.A/444).
“Long-term changes in life expectancy and fertility have converted many countries into aging societies. Failure to adapt to population aging may constrain productivity, well-being, financial security, and equity, and may increase tensions between generations as they compete for limited resources. In comparison to other countries, the United States has adapted in some domains but less so in others.
“The high performance of the United States in productivity and engagement reflects the highest labor force participation rates at older ages, high effective retirement age, and high rates of volunteerism. These findings are likely driven by low unemployment rates and the adoption of flexibility in work hours and pension eligibility rules to reduce constraints to continued employment (20). Thirty-nine percent of employers in the United States offer flexible schedules, and 77% of employers in the United States say that many employees plan to continue working on either a full-time or part-time basis after retirement age (21). In contrast, in Europe, 78% of people aged 55 y and above stop working altogether, citing the lack of opportunities for gradual retirement by reducing work hours (22).
“There has been substantial recent attention directed to the growing inequality in the distribution of income and wealth in the United States and other developed countries. The benefits of economic growth have increasingly gone to a smaller segment of the population, raising a new level of concern for diminishing equality of opportunity (23). The severity of the issue in the United States is reflected in its poor performance in equity, driven by the very high US Gini coefficient for individuals over 65 y of age. Between 1975 and 2012, about 47% of the total growth in pretax income in the United States went to the top 1% (24). Some argue that this misdistribution is not a major concern as long as those with the lowest incomes have access to sufficient resources. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the United States, where the risk of poverty in old age was 21% in 2011, well above the OECD average of 12.5% (25).”
Source: Cynthia Chen, Dana P. Goldman, Julie Zissimopoulos, John W. Rowe, Research Network on an Aging Society. Multidimensional comparison of countries’ adaptation to societal aging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2018, 115 (37) 9169-9174; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1806260115
“Older people are the main users of long-term care due to increased rates of morbidity and disability and declines in functionality as people age. A sustained increase in long-term care demand is therefore a direct result of the profound changes in the population structure in recent decades (Brändström et al., Reference Brändström, Meyer, Modig and Sandström2021; Hu & Ma, Reference Hu and Ma2018; Hu et al., Reference Hu, Read, Wittenberg, Brimblecombe, Rodrigues and Banerjee2022b; Hu et al., Reference Hu, Shin, Han and Rhee2022c; Kemper, Reference Kemper1992; Murphy et al., Reference Murphy, Whelan and Normand2015; Suanet et al., Reference Suanet, Van Groenou and Van Tilburg2012). Population ageing is a global phenomenon. There has been a continued increase in the number as well as the proportion of older people in developed and developing countries alike. It is projected that the number of older people aged 60 and over will increase by 116 per cent between 2017 and 2050, from 962 million to 2,081 million (United Nations, 2019). The demographic structure within the older population is also changing. As life expectancy continues to rise, especially in developing countries, the proportion of very old people (those aged over 85) increases much faster than the older population in general (United Nations, 2019). People of very old age are also the most intensive users of long-term care (Hu, Reference Hu2020).
“Population ageing is driven by decreasing fertility and mortality rates. A decline in fertility rates takes place in the context of (post-)industrialisation where the pursuit of education, employment and other personal life goals leads people to have fewer children, or to have children later in life. In some cases, government policy also plays a decisive role. For example, the One Child policy pursued by the Chinese government in the late 1970s restricted parents to having a single child, and the fertility rate has stayed low ever since (Feng et al., Reference Feng, Liu, Guan and Mor2012). Lower fertility rates do not directly affect demand for long-term care but exert an indirect influence through a reduction in the number of younger adults and the availability of caregivers, which affects supply-induced demand.”
Source: Hu B, Wittenberg R. Historical and future drivers of long-term care demand. In: Cylus J, Wharton G, Carrino L, Ilinca S, Huber M, Barber SL, eds. The Care Dividend: Why and How Countries Should Invest in Long-Term Care. European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. Cambridge University Press; 2025:16-47.
World Health Systems Facts currently has sections on the US and sixteen other OECD nations. The links below lead directly to national sections on Aging:
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World Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems and policies in the US and sixteen other nations.
Page last updated September 5, 2025 by Doug McVay, Editor.