The Challenges of Ageing Populations: The Need for Societal Change

The issue of ageing populations in the UK (and other countries) is well known and much debated. However the causal factors associated with this phenomenon are not always well understood, involving, as they do, both:

• An unprecedented and continuing decline in all causes all ages mortality resulting in growing numbers of elderly (65+) and very elderly (80+) in the population
• a reduction in the numbers of children being born to families resulting in reduced fertility rate which are below the population replenishment level

The consequences of these two factors are a population bulge with increasing proportion of the population being economically inactive people and supported economically by a decreasing proportion of those who are economically active.

Neither are the implications of such changes always fully understood. While the impact on health and social care are well know there are also implications for many other areas of public policy.