PEOPLE OVER 60 TO INCREASE BY MORE THAN 1 BILLION

WORLD POPULATION WILL INCREASE BY 2.5 BILLION BY 2050;

PEOPLE OVER 60 TO INCREASE BY MORE THAN 1 BILLION

NEW YORK, 13 March (United Nations Population Division) -- The world population continues its path towards population ageing and is on track to surpass 9 billion persons by 2050, as revealed by the newly released 2006 Revision of the official United Nations population estimates and projections.

The results of the 2006 Revision -- which provide the population basis for the assessment of trends at the global, regional and national levels, and serve as input for calculating many key indicators in the United Nations system -- incorporate the findings of the most recent national population censuses and of the numerous specialized population surveys carried out around the world.

According to the 2006 Revision, the world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion over the next 43 years, passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950, and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050. In contrast, the population of the more developed regions is expected to remain largely unchanged at 1.2 billion, and would have declined, were it not for the projected net migration from developing to developed countries, which is expected to average 2.3 million persons annually.

As a result of declining fertility and increasing longevity, the populations of more and more countries are ageing rapidly. Between 2005 and 2050, half of the increase in the world population will be accounted for by a rise in the population aged 60 years or over, whereas the number of children (persons under age 15) will decline slightly. Furthermore, in the more developed regions, the population aged 60 or over is expected to nearly double (from 245 million in 2005 to 406 million in 2050), whereas that of persons under age 60 will likely decline (from 971 million in 2005 to 839 million in 2050).

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/pop952.doc.htm