What is the next 7%?

The world is aging so quickly that we haven’t yet defined terms for it

Greg Langley

It is a misconception, oft repeated, that the United Nations has officially defined “aging” or “aged” societies. For example, last year, Moody’s, the rating agency, claimed that the number of “super-aged” countries – where one in five members of the population is 65 or older – would rise from three today (Germany, Italy and Japan) to 13 and 34.

While factually correct based on projections, the report repeated the error concerning definitions, and it echoed throughout the media. The UN does have an official definition of the age group “older” (those aged 60 or over), endorsed during the first World Assembly on Ageing, in, but there is actually no definition of “aging,” “aged” or “super-aged” societies.

Mary Beth Weinberger, a former chief of the Population and Development Section of the Population Division of the UN, has often fielded questions concerning the definitions. The idea that there is a UN-endorsed definition of “aging society” traces back to a study in the, she responded in an e-mail to PROJECT M.

“It appears that an arbitrarily defined classification of countries as ‘young’, ‘mature’ and ‘aged’ (exceeding 7%) was employed in a UN publication and picked up by later authors. In the course of repeated citation, the classification arbitrarily used for that particular study (The Aging of Populations and its Economic and Social Implications,) evolved into something that sounded more like an official UN classification.”

As time passed and the percentages in older ages have grown, researchers have used the 7% and 14% aged 65+ points as arbitrary divides to indicate the pace of population aging, although other markers could just as well be used. Yet, given that the thresholds are convenient signposts indicating the aging of society, the question is, what will come next?

AFTER SUPER-AGING

As Moody’s highlighted, once 21% of a country’s population is 65 years and over, it is considered by some researchers to be “super-aged.” But given the speed with which the world is aging, it will not be long before a new term is needed – when 28% of a country’s population is 65 years and over. Based on the UN World Population Prospects (Revision), Japan will reach this by, and Italy and Germany by. Within a decade, Austria, Korea, Greece, Portugal and Spain will follow.

Martina Miskolczi and Kornélia Cséfalvaiová, from the department of demographics at the University of Economics in Prague, were among the first to have a turn at naming the new category when they used the phrase “ultra-aged” society in the conference paper Process of Population Ageing and its Dynamic. Whether this term sticks is doubtful, as this will not be the final name needed to define a category.

By, when China will have crossed the threshold to becoming an ultra-aged society, researchers will have already faced the challenge of turning a phrase for another demographic bracket. By then, Japan could already have had 35% of its population aged 65 or more since, indicating just how fast our world is aging.

What is the next 7%?

The world is aging so quickly that we haven’t yet defined terms for it

Greg Langley

What is the next 7%?

The world is aging so quickly that we haven’t yet defined terms for it

Greg Langley

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