3. Measuring population ageing

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Del curso dictado por The University of Melbourne

Rethinking Ageing: Are we prepared to live longer?

32 calificaciones

The University of Melbourne

Rethinking Ageing: Are we prepared to live longer?

32 calificaciones

Population ageing is occurring in nearly every country around the world. This MOOC takes a multidisciplinary approach to explore the impact of living longer and takes into account the technological advancements, the built environment, economics and ethics to rethink what it means to 'age well' now and in the future. Rethinking Ageing is a uniquely designed course to give you a broad overview of the many complex issues involved as we as individuals get older and on the macro-level for population ageing. You may already have a particular interest in one discipline, such as mental health and ageing or age-friendly design. We encourage you, though, to use this course to explore the other perspectives on population ageing as the modules build on each other. View the MOOC promotional video here: http://tinyurl.com/j7lz8q8

De la lección

Worldwide population ageing trends

The course begins with the big picture when it comes to global population ageing over the 21st century. Together we explore from both a social policy and demographer perspective what is actually happening to our current and projected lifespans. The video lectures start with Tara Sklar providing an overview for the course and the key staff involved. She is followed by Professor Simon Biggs and he presents the social, cultural and intergenerational issues to consider in population ageing. Dr Rebecca Kippen then takes us through a series of lectures where she highlights demography tools and reliable, free data sources for measuring population ageing. Both Professor Biggs and Dr Kippen are attempting to better understand the trends over the 21st century and make evidence-based predictions for the future. These lectures will form the foundation for topics to come in the later weeks as well as your first assessment, so please take the time to watch them and then participate in the related discussion board forums so we can hear from you and you can meet each other. Week one concludes with whether there are limits to future increases in life expectancy. Particularly, since some argue the current generation of children in western countries are the unhealthiest ever to live with their high rates of Type 2 Diabetes and inactivity. Will they live longer than the previous generation?

1. Introduction to MOOC and key staff14:35

2. Global population ageing6:26

3. Measuring population ageing9:59

4. Population ageing data sources, trends and patterns8:54

5. Population ageing in 21st century14:00

Conoce a los instructores

Rob Moodie
Co-Chair Hallmark Ageing Research Initiative
Melbourne School of Population Health
Simon Biggs
Professor of Gerontology & Social Policy
School of Social & Political Sciences
Rebecca Kippen
Senior Research Fellow
Melbourne School of Population and Global Health
Louisa Remedios
Director of Teaching and Learning
School of Health Science
Debra Virtue
Lecturer
Melbourne School of Health Sciences
Eleanor Curran
Consultant Psychiatrist
Public Mental Health Service
Fernando Sanchez
Chair of Health Informatics
The University of Melbourne
Alan Pert
Director
Melbourne School of Design
Clare Newton
Associate Professor
Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning
Jack Barton
Urban Data and eResearch Facilitator
Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN)
Ian McDonald
Emeritus Professor
Faculty of Business and Economics
Briony Dow

National Ageing Research Institute
Dominique Martin
Lecturer
School of Population and Global Health
Tara Sklar
MOOC Project Coordinator; Co-Director of Ageing Programs; Research Fellow in Health Law
Melbourne School of Population and Global Health

Hello. I'm Rebecca Kippen.

Welcome to these three lectures on population ageing.

In these lectures we'll explore definitions of population ageing and

the reasons populations are getting older.

We'll then look at some data sources on population ageing and

global trends over the 20th century through to the present.

Finally, we'll consider possible population ageing trends in the future.

Will life expectancies continue to increase and populations continue to age?

Or will people lead shorter lives in the future?

Due to, for example, rising levels of obesity and diabetes.

Each one of us individually is getting older, one year at a time.

One calendar year in time means one year older in age.

However, when we are measured together as a population,

populations can either become older,

get younger or stay the same age.

When we talk about populations becoming older or population ageing,

this is measured by the proportion or the percentage of population of older ages.

Generally, the older age population is defined as those 65 years and over.

So population ageing is measured by the percentage of the population age at

those ages 65 and above.

Populations around the world are getting older.

That is, the proportion of populations age 65 years and above is becoming larger.

This is projected to continue over the 21st century, and

is now considered one of the great policy challenges of the current century.

Why is this considered a policy challenge?

It's a wonderful thing that globally people are living longer.

However, in general, older populations mean higher health care costs,

aged-care costs, and pension costs, at the same time that fewer people are in

the paid labor force because the larger older age population are mostly retired.

These challenges are being addressed by governments around the world and

will be discussed in more detail in future

lectures in this series on the economics of ageing.

So why are populations getting older?

With an increase in the proportion of populations age 65 years and over.

The first reason is the birth rates around the world have been falling.

Falling birthrates mean fewer births.

Which mean fewer young people and

therefore proportionally more people at older ages.

The second reason is the obvious one.

People are living longer lives than in the past.

And they're therefore much more likely to survive well into old age.

The third reason is past demographic shifts.

For example, many countries experienced a baby boom after the Second World War.

Lots of births from 1945 when the war ended means lots of people

shifting into old age 65 years later, from 2010 in this case.

Let's look at these three factors in action using Australia as a case study.

This chart shows Australia's total fertility rate

from the beginning of the Twentieth Century through to the present day.

Here fertility refers to the numbers of babies that women

give birth to,

not the general meaning that we know of that it's the ability to conceive and

bear children.

The total fertility rate is a measure of the average number of children

born to each woman over her lifetime.

You can see that in 1901,

the total fertility rate was just over 3.4 births per woman.

This fell through the 1910s, 1920s, and early 1930s.

Bottoming out at around 2.1 in 1934.

We then see an increase through the remainder of the 1930s,

the 1940s, and 50s.

Fertility peaked in 1961, at 3.6 births per woman.

Then fell dramatically over the next two decades.

Since 1980 the total fertility rate has been roughly stable

at around 1.8 to 1.9 births per woman.

So from this we would expect to see two affects on population ageing in Australia.

The first is that caused by relatively low fertility over the past three decades.

Fewer births means fewer young people

means proportionately more people at older ages.

The second is the baby boom that occurred over Australia in the 1940s and 50s.

These past high birth rates mean there are a lot of people shifting into old age now,

which increases population ageing.

The other reasons populations are ageing is because of increasing life expectancies.

This chart shows average life expectancy for males and females for

Australia from 1901 to 2012.

You can see there's been an enormous increase over that time.

Male life expectancy has increased from 52 years to 80 years,

while female life expectancy rose from 56 to 85.

Almost 30 years increase for each sex.

The increase has been fairly steady except for

a dip in 1919 due to the influenza pandemic,

and a brief levelling off during the 1960s.

The three factors discussed here,

falling birthrates, increased longevity, and

past demographic shifts have resulted in the ageing of Australian's population.

We can see that here, in Australia's population pyramids

in 1901, 1961, and 2013.

A population pyramid

is a graphical representation of a population by age and sex.

Males are on the left and females on the right.

Remember females are always right.

And each band represents a five year age group,

starting with age zero to four years at the base.

Then five to nine, ten to fourteen, and so on.

Finishing with age 100 years and over at the top.

The population pyramid for

Australia, in 1901, almost has that traditional pyramid shape.

With a broad base tapering gradually to the top.

This is the classic shape that results from high birth rates and

high death rates.

High fertility means lots of babies and young children in the population.

But high death rates mean people die off fairly quickly

as they progress up the pyramid.

Looking at the 1961 pyramid,

we can see the effect at the base of the post-war baby boom.

Fifteen years at that time of high fertility meant a large population at age

zero to fifteen.

There are also proportionately more people at the older ages

due to the longer lives that people were living at that time.

In the final pyramid, for 2013, we can see the effect of all three factors,

recent low birth rates, higher life expectancies, and the past baby boom.

There are proportionately fewer people at the younger ages,

due to the low birth rates.

And proportionately more people at the older ages.

In fact, the proportion of the population age 65 years and

over, has increased from 4% in 1901 to 9% in 1961, and 14% in 2013.

Australia's population is ageing,

as are those of most other countries around the world.

At this time, I'd like you to consider.

Do you think it's useful to have a specified age above

which people are considered old?

If yes, what should this age be?

Should it differ between populations or change over time?

Finally, we finish off with some population ageing definitions.

Generally the old or aged population means the population age 65 years and

over, or sometimes the population age 60 years and over.

The oldest, old population refers to the population aged 85 and

above, or in some cases 80 and over.

Centenarians are those aged 100 and above and super-centenarians

are the very small group at the moment aged 110 years and over.

Numerical ageing means an increase in the numbers of people at older ages.

While structural ageing refers to an increase in the proportion of people

at older ages.

Thank you for your time today and see you soon in the second lecture on population

ageing, where we will discuss sources of data

and trends and patterns of population ageing around the world.

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