Q- What are the potential consequences of an ageing population in MEDCs?

A-
Cause of Ageing population?
1. An ageing population is caused by a countrys death rate decreasing
through better standards of healthcare, increasing affluence and
industrialisation.

Countries that are burdened by an ageing population are generally in stage
4/5 of the Demographic Transition model.

2. Another reason for an ageing population structure is if a countrys birth rate
decreases either from higher status of women/ better education or through
population policies like in Singapore and China. Europe is the area that suffers
most from an ageing population:

23 of the worlds oldest countries are in Europe. However, it is a global
problem: in 2021, for the first time ever the percentage of people over 65 is
expected to be greater than the number of children under 5. Perhaps even
more worrying is the fact that the octogenarian age group (over 80s) is the
fastest growing age group in the world.

Consequences of ageing population:
1. Economic impact.
An ageing population can have severe economic impacts. It would put a strain
on the national economy, with increased government spending for services
like care homes and medical care for the elderly. This may put a strain on
public services like the NHS.

2. There would be less people of a working age and more dependants. As well
as loss of tax revenue for the government and an overload of pensions, it
would place further strain on the so called sandwich generation; middle aged
parents who have to look after their children and their parents.

3. Needs of immigrants workers:
To try and ease the effect of an elderly population, some countries rely on
immigration to produce an influx of young people of working age to support
the national economy. As well as placing further strain on housing and public
services, it can have an impact socially too.




Environmental impact:
An elderly population can have an impact on the environment too. Many new
residential/ care home buildings would have to be built to accommodate the
elderly as well as single-floor housing (bungalows).

The designs of town centres/urban areas would have to be adapted as well to
make them more suitable for older people i.e. building more lifts and having
ramps for disabled people to use instead of stairways.


Social impact:
There may be racial tensions between the indigenous and migrant population
over employment and benefits. So called ghettos (which means in this sense
an area which is home to a certain ethnic group) may form which increases
the sense of separation even more.

Where occur?
Ageing populations generally do occur in MEDCs (richer countries) as these
countries have a higher life expectancy thanks to a good standard of
healthcare (the UK is a welfare state) and a reasonable quality of life.

LEDCs tend not to have an ageing population structure as they have high birth
rates and a young population structure (thanks to reasons such as religion and
lack of contraceptives).

In the immediate future, this will have a major impact of resources as there
will be more people to feed, house and sustain. In the next half-century
however as Countries enter stage 5 of the DMT; their population will start to
decline as their ageing population starts to die off. This will further exacerbate
the problem of an elderly population structure as the older dependency ratio
will increase further with the baby boom generation living longer than their
parents.

As this happens, replacement ratios will decrease even further leaving
governments crippled from loss of tax revenue. As a result of this,
governments might not afford to buy the resources its country needs because
an increasing percentage of its budget will have to be spent on care for the
elderly.