United Nations Says Elderly Will Soon Outnumber Young for First Time

By : Emma Daly 
New York Times, April 9, 2002

MADRID, April 8 — A million people now turn 60 every month, a demographic revolution that will mean older people will outnumber the young for the first time in history, according to the United Nations' Second Assembly on Ageing, which opened here today, 20 years after the organization's first conference addressing the issue.

Three-quarters of the people over 60 live in the developing world, while even rich nations have long wondered how they will continue to finance pensions and health care for future generations.

"Aging is definitely no longer just a first-world issue," said the United Nations' secretary general, Kofi Annan, who opened the five-day conference. "What was a footnote in the 20th century is on its way to becoming a dominant theme in the 21st."

The United Nations estimates that the number of people over 60 will rise to two billion in 2050, from 600 million today, with the "oldest old," those 80 or older, increasing to 350 million from 70 million. Delegates from more than 160 countries are supposed to agree on an international plan to ease the difficulties faced by the elderly and to consider how best to harness their unused talents.

"We need to recognize that as more people are better educated, live longer and stay healthy longer, older persons can and do make greater contributions to society than ever before," Mr. Annan told the delegates. He used his 64th birthday on Sunday to quote the Beatles: "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?" adding, "I trust the answer is yes."

But for many millions of older people, especially the rural poor in developing nations, food, water, electricity, medical care and security are still in scarce supply. The United Nations Population Fund commissioned a study of the elderly in South Africa and India, and concluded that urbanization, migration, the breakdown of traditional social structures and the AIDS crisis has forced many older people, especially women, into extreme poverty and isolation.

Thousands of older people who once expected to be supported by their children have instead watched them die of AIDS, leaving children to be cared for by grandparents who do not even know how the disease is contracted and who have no money to pay for food or medicine.

The Group of 77 developing nations and China have proposed a new United Nations agency — like the children's fund, Unicef — to coordinate programs for the elderly.