Low mortality combined with low fertility produces a population with a high proportion of older adults. The median age of the population rises, and the population experiences “aging” or “graying.” Further increase in the number of women beyond the age of child-bearing reduces the fertility rate even more. Life expectancy increases and more and more older adults with grey hair can be seen in the streets.
Graying is associated with developed countries, where pharmaceutical treatment and scientific achievements allow preserving people’s life. The generation of the baby boom in the middle of the twentieth century approaches retirement. These factors provoked the aging of the population in the developed world.
Most youthful nations are found in countries with a low standard of living and high fertility rates. But youth there does not imply a healthy young body and vigorous energy. Ill-fed children and a high rate of infant death, diseases, and malnutrition accompany a high percentage of mortality in developing countries. Limited possibilities to provide full services to older adults and underdeveloped public health institutions provoke a low percentage of retired people. The rate of population below age 15 is much higher in developing countries than in industrialized ones.
Control of population, like in China with the one-child policy, and low fertility rate, contributes to the aging of the population in developed countries. Although graying demonstrates advances in public health, it contains a hidden risk of an aging workforce. An older rigid workforce is more likely to reject innovations. It is doubtful whether immigration contributes not only to the population growth rate in developed countries but also to the number of skilled workers. The image of the community in the developed world will be gradually changing to elderly, old, and very old. The United States is also graying but slower due to replacement-rate fertility.
Nations burdened with age are more prosperous and peaceful. At the same time, the aging of the nation presupposes rising pension and health care costs, long-term care. It means the challenge for governments to provide an adequate quality of life for older persons, who should consider their golden age as an excellent opportunity for creative work, meditation, traveling, and spending free time with much profit.
In developing countries, fertility rates are higher than in the developed world; young adults aged 15 to 24 make a considerable percentage. Aging developed countries will confront the inability to maintain security, while the young developing world with the increase in food can constitute an epicenter of emerging conflict in Africa and the Middle East. However, the trend of aging will attain developing countries as well. They will confront the necessity to adjust their economy and social policy to the challenging risks of an aging workforce.
Thus, falling fertility, which reduces the number of children, and rising longevity, which augments the number of older adults, constitute a considerable geopolitical threat. Economic well-being can experience a crisis due to the decrease of working-age populations. A shrinking workforce will be obliged to support the increasing number of retirees. It means a lower amount of taxes and goods and services needed by the whole population. The decline in economic output menaces the welfare of both young and old.
Graying of the population in developed industrialized countries is associated with increasing urbanization. Infrastructure and services demand increase while the number of workers providing these services decreases. Youth predominance in Africa and the Middle East is identified as a location of political instability and conflict because of food and water distribution. In order to avert the negative ramifications of graying, strategic demographic policies in the global scope should be elaborated.