The New York Times will excerpt Ted C. Fishman’s important work, Shock of Gray: The Aging of the World’s Population and How It Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival and Nation Against Nation, in tomorrow’s NYT Magazine. (They published it online Thursday.)
Don’t miss this story. If you’re old or want to get old, or if you have children or grandchildren, I predict this book will be to them what Future Shock, Silent Spring, Invisible Man, Roots or The Feminine Mystique was to us.
As Populations Age, a Chance for Younger Nations
By TED C. FISHMAN
Published: October 14, 2010
YOU MAY KNOW that the world’s population is aging — that the number of older people is expanding faster than the number of young — but you probably don’t realize how fast this is happening. Right now, the world is evenly divided between those under 28 and those over 28. By midcentury, the median age will have risen to 40. Demographers also use another measure, in addition to median age, to determine whether populations are aging: “elder share.” If the share, or proportion, of people over 60 (or sometimes 65) is growing, the population is aging. By that yardstick too, the world is quickly becoming older. Pick any age cohort above the median age of 28 and you’ll find its share of the global population rising faster than that of any segment below the median. By 2018, 65-year-olds, for example, will outnumber those under 5 — a historic first. In 2050, developed countries are on track to have half as many people under 15 as they do over 60. In short, the age mix of the world is turning upside down and at unprecedented rates.
Complete story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/magazine/17Aging-t.html?hpw