Visualizing The Rapidly Aging Western World
From issues such as declining fertility rates to the ongoing complications resulting from China’s famous “One Child Policy”, there are many demographic challenges that the world must grapple with in the coming years.
However, Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes one problem of particular importance – at least in places like Europe and the Americas – is a rapidly aging population. As the population shifts grayer, potential consequences include higher dependency ratios, rising healthcare costs, and shifting economies and cities.
EUROPE: A PRIME EXAMPLE
We’ve discussed Germany’s demographic cliff before, but it’s not only Germany that will be impacted by a rapidly aging population.
The above animation from data visualization expert Aron Strandberg shows the median age of European countries between 1960 and 2060.
Starting about a decade from now, you can see that the U.N. projects some European countries to start hitting a median age of 50 or higher. This includes countries like Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece, and then later Germany, Poland, Bosnia, and Croatia.
The UK, France, Ireland, Scandinavia, and former Soviet countries will be younger – but only slightly so. Median ages in these places by 2060 will be in the early to mid-forties....MORE
