Introduction

The world population has been experiencing significant ageing?the process that results in rising proportions of older persons in the total population?since the mid-twentieth century. Ageing had started earlier in the more developed regions and was beginning to take place in some developing countries and was becoming more evident at the global scale around the time of the International Conference on Population and Development took place in 1994 in Cairo, Egypt. Population ageing was further advanced by the Second World Assembly on Ageing, which took place in Madrid, Spain, in 2002, and the demographic projections at that time evidenced an unmistakeable trend of continued ageing, which would no doubt consolidate during the twentyfirst century. As this report makes clear, however, the intensity and depth of ageing will vary considerably among countries and regions.

Related Subject(s): Population and Demography