Ageing Population Essay

380 Words2 Pages
An Ageing population A country whose population is an ageing population has a lot of people over the age of 65. Most of these countries are at stages 4 or 5 of the demographic transition model. This is because people live for longer in these countries due to advances in medical care This creates economic problems for these countries as these people are not economically active and are economically dependant because not work and have to be provided with pensions and medical care. These are paid for using the taxes the economically active part of the population. In addition, an increasing number of young people are employed as care workers for the elderly, meaning they wouldn’t be employed for jobs that are better for the economy. Life expectancy is higher in developing countries than in developing countries as people are expected to be able to retire from work and have a pension. As there are more elderly people and less working people, there is not enough money to pay for good pensions. There are also many social problems caused by having an ageing population. An elderly population need more healthcares because more illness occurs in old age. They have more time in hospital than younger or middle-aged people. The government have to fund services like the NHS this comes from taxes. Elderly people also need other nursing homes and day-care centres this also puts social and economical pressure on a country. An example of a country with an ageing population is France. A third of the population will be over 60 by 2050. France is coping with its ageing population by using a pro-natal policy. This encourages people to have more children and more economically active people in the future. People are given a lot of incentives to have children for example three years of paid parental leave, full time schooling at the age of 3 that is paid for by the government and the
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