Is there an aging population in the world?

Yes, the bus is full of white-haired old people; All houses have their own elevators; Many basketball courts have been changed into battlefields; More than half of TV programs are about the elderly, and the whole world is afraid that all these situations will come true one day. Aging and its chain reaction have become a dilemma that all countries in the world have to face.

Text | "Xiaokang" reporter Zhang Xu

"When you are old, white-haired and sleepy, take a nap in front of the fire, please write down this poem ..." Have you ever wondered how old you will be when you become as old as the poet Ye Zhi described?

Sixty years ago, many people might think it was around 60, but now, at least 1 15 countries and regions should be confident that they can still take a nap in front of the stove at the age of 70. According to the report "World Population Aging 2009" released by the United Nations Population Division in 20 10, from 1950 to 2009, the proportion of the global population aged over 60 and over 65 increased from 8% and 5% to 165438 respectively.

Obviously, the world of 20 10 is longer, but the longevity world of 20 10 has entered the aging era as a whole.

/kloc-one day in 0/959, the birthday of the last Japanese?

So what will happen in the future, like 2050?

If a Japanese woman happened to be studying in Ye Zhi at that time, her age of appreciating poetic images could even be extended to 9 1 year-40 years later, Japanese women's life expectancy is the highest in the world! But there is also a bad prediction: she probably won't know her death until a few days or even longer after dozing off, because the person she knows is Otawa, her age, and because her only child is too far away from her, or there are no children at all. Since 2000, similar tragedies of an aging society have occurred from time to time in Japan. The data behind the tragedy is that as of 2009 10, the proportion of elderly people over 65 in Japan's total population was 22.7%.

Results In the ranking of global aging in 2009, Japan ranked first, while European countries monopolized a series of positions from second to 27th, among which Italy, Germany, Sweden, Greece and France were the best, and the European group was not far behind, followed by Canada, Australia and the United States.

The challenge of aging should be traced back to the continuous decline of fertility rate and the continuous extension of national life expectancy. In fact, these two phenomena are no longer the patents of "western" or "developed countries".

Ibrahim Nadzhim, a 27-year-old Egyptian, said that he only wanted two children. His three brothers thought so, but his grandfather didn't think so, so Nadeem's father had nine brothers and sisters, and Nadeem's great-grandfather didn't think so, so Nadeem's grandfather had 27 brothers and sisters, even though these children were born to his great-grandfather and three women. According to United Nations data, the total fertility rate in Egypt, that is, the number of children per woman, dropped from 3. 17 in 2000 to 2.89 to 20 10 in 2005, and the predicted trend is to continue to decline.

From Egypt and Sudan in North Africa to Lebanon and Iran in West Asia, to Turkmenistan in Central Asia, to South Korea and China Macao Special Administrative Region in East Asia-women here have created the lowest total fertility rate in the world at present, that is, 0.9 1, to Brazil and Chile in South America, and then to Cuba in the Caribbean, the trend of fertility decline is sweeping developing countries, and before that, all developed countries have been swept away.

The main force to depress the fertility rate comes from urbanization.

As Phillip Longman, a demographer, said in a recent article published in American Foreign Policy magazine, "In cities, children mean expensive responsibilities, not assistants when plowing and grazing." The high cost of this responsibility is usually reflected in education investment. Fabian Ochse, a German, said, "It will be enough to have a child in the future, because I want to give him/her the best education I can." John Marcus, an American, said, "If I don't become rich, I may not have children because it is too expensive. Don't forget, the annual tuition fee of Ivy League universities in the United States is 50,000 to 60,000 dollars. " Because of urbanization, more and more women can get better education and more employment opportunities. When they have to choose between work and childbirth, reducing, delaying or even giving up the latter has become the final choice of many people.

As He Yafu, an independent demographer in China, said, "Education and economic development are the best contraceptives". According to the data, in 2007, the urbanization process of global distribution of "contraceptives" has been completed by 50%, and it is expected that by 2030, this number will rise to 80%. By then, the total fertility rate of developing countries will drop from 2.7 in 20 10 to 2.4, while that of developed countries is only 1.7.

It should be reminded that the generation replacement level to keep the population size unchanged is that every woman has 2. 1 child-"2" takes the place of parents, and "0. 1" fills the vacancy left by infertile couples. If there is no obvious change in the current trend and speed of global fertility decline, the number of children per woman in the world will drop to 2.0 by 2050. In Japan, where the total fertility rate is only 1.25, some desperate demographers even predict that keeping this number means that one day of 1959 will be the birthday of the last Japanese.

Other data are related to the increasing life span. Thanks to medical progress, the average life expectancy of the global population in 20 10 has reached 67.6 years; In developing countries and regions such as Singapore, China, Hongkong and Macau, people's life expectancy even exceeds 80 years. It is estimated that by 2050, the average life expectancy of the global population will rise to 75.5 years, nearly 7/8 people will live to 60 years old, and one in every two people will live to 80 years old.

Looking forward to 2050, when the global population reached a peak of 91.50 billion, and then began to decline, the United Nations report on aging believed that the global population over 60 years old would exceed 2 billion, accounting for nearly 22% of the global population, and the proportion of the population over 65 years old would increase to1.6%. As the fertility rate continues to decline, the working population will decrease. By then, every elderly person over 65 can only rely on 3.9 laborers aged between 15 and 64, and in 20 10, the ratio will still be 1 8.7.

There are many old people, and the consequences are very serious.

3.9 In the era of raising 1, the biggest problem is how to raise and support the elderly, which has actually made many countries feel quite embarrassed.

Or take Japan, which is deeply aging, as an example. In 20 10, every three laborers in Japan need to support 1 old people, which is the lowest level in the world. As the number of working people paying pension insurance is decreasing and the number of pensioners is expanding, there will be a gap of 2.5 trillion yen (about 28.97 billion US dollars) in Japan's pay-as-you-go pension system from the fiscal year 20 1 1. Filling this deficit has made it difficult for the current Japanese government, and by 2050-it is expected that every elderly person in Japan will be supported by only one labor force-the problem of providing for the aged is undoubtedly more disastrous for Japan.

In the same gloomy Europe, in 20 10, the French government made up its mind to postpone the retirement age in order to alleviate the economic pressure of the elderly. An article in The New York Times in June this year 10 said that Germany and Sweden are also preparing to reduce the welfare level of the elderly in the future. "The uncontrolled growth of pension expenditure in some European countries is one of the important reasons for the debt crisis in the euro zone this year." This article is analyzed like this. In the same month, Standard & Poor's "Global Aging 20 10: The Irreversible Truth" predicted that if the current pension payment level continues, the government debt of most developed countries will be as high as three times the GDP in 2050.

As for developing countries that get old before they get rich, and the responsibility for providing for the elderly is mainly borne by families, the problem may be even more difficult.

Equally worrying is that in the world in 2050, how many out of every 3.9 workers will be willing to support the old people they share? In eastern Japan, where the burden of old-age insurance is heavy, young people actually have a strong sense of imbalance. Many of them have refused to pay the old-age insurance premium for a long time, so that the current contribution rate of Japanese national pension is only about 60%.

In Australia with western cultural traditions, the responsibility of providing for the aged seems to be challenged. Ian mcfarlane, former president of the Australian Federal Reserve Bank, once commented: "We spend too much money on former workers and too little money on training future workers. This distribution is wrong. "

According to the research of American sociologist Yonina Garber-Talmon, "In most societies where the proportion of the elderly is very low, they are respected. However, when the steady growth of the elderly population becomes a burden for young people, the image of the elderly group will become negative. "

Contradictory solution

Some people may think that creating more labor for the world in 40 years may be the most direct way to alleviate aging. Therefore, many countries that think of this method are now encouraging young people to have more children. However, the effect of motivation is generally not ideal. For example, in order to let young couples have more children, the Australian government once put forward the slogan of "one for the mother, one for the father and one for the country", but an article by demographer Longman tells people that Australian women don't even want to have a second child at present. Another example is Singapore. According to the government's incentive policy, when a woman gives birth to her first and second children, each child can get a subsidy of about $3,000, and the subsidy will rise to $4,500 from the third child. Nevertheless, from 2000 to 20 10, the total fertility rate in Singapore dropped from 1.35 to 1.26.

On the other hand, some demographers are worried about the effectiveness of the incentive policy. Li Xiaoping, a researcher at the Institute of Population and Labor Economics of China Academy of Social Sciences, believes that encouraging childbearing will lead to further expansion of the global population, so it is not desirable.

In fact, in order to alleviate the economic pressure brought by aging, many countries have begun to accept more and more immigrants. According to the data of Eurostat, in 2009, the population of the EU increased by 654.38+400,000, of which 900,000 were immigrants. The reason why the aging degree of the United States, Canada and Australia is lower than that of Europe and Japan is mainly because of the loose immigration policy. However, relying on immigrants will create new problems. When importing countries get young labor, the aging degree of exporting countries is accelerating. Under the circumstance that the global fertility rate continues to decrease, who will depend on to provide for the elderly after the immigrants get old?

Therefore, it is another choice to extend the working hours of the elderly and let them be as self-reliant as possible. France made this choice on 20 10, but strong protests showed that the elderly there were unwilling to retire in the future. The bigger problem is that even if the elderly want to, they must first obtain the consent of the body.

Perhaps, people can still count on technological progress. Li Xiaoping, an optimistic demographer, said that "the potential of technological development for human substitution is enormous". Therefore, he believes that "the aging process is actually a process of eliminating surplus labor, and it is a process of replacing labor-intensive production with technology-intensive production." However, another scholar, He Yafu, holds a different view. "The larger the population, the more people with inventive talents and the more technological innovations," He Yafu said. In view of the declining global fertility rate and the inevitable shrinking population size, the prospect of scientific and technological progress does not look so encouraging.

No matter how controversial these ideas are, people hope to have the right choice to meet the challenges of an aging world. The United Nations "World Population Aging (2009)" report says, "The challenge in the future is to ensure that people all over the world are accompanied by security and dignity when they are old, and they also have all the rights as citizens when they participate in social life."

In this regard, people living on the earth today have confidence! Right?