An aging population

[Sheriff Roland]

In the near future, 25 per cent of Canadians will be seniors

http://www.vancouversun.com/life/four+Canadians+soon+senior/2275848/story.html

By the end of the 2030s, nearly one-quarter of Canada's population will be seniors aged 65 and over, thanks to the baby boomer generation moving en masse into that stage of life, according to new population estimates released Friday by Statistics Canada.

As of July 1, 2009, seniors comprised a record high 13.9 per cent of the Canadian population, the report shows, while children under 15 accounted for 16.6 per cent.
...
...Canada's proportion of seniors is still one of the lowest among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member nations, in which seniors account for an average of 14.3 per cent of the population. The United Kingdom, France and Germany all have a higher proportion of seniors than Canada, while the United States has a smaller slice.

As of July 1, there were 1.3 million people in Canada aged 80 and over, Statistics Canada says, making up 3.8 per cent of the population. An estimated 6,000 of those are members of the elite century club, aged 100 and over, and the number of centenarians has nearly doubled from 2001, the first year for which estimates are available. The latest population projections suggest they could number 15,000 at the beginning of the 2030s.


I'm thinking that one of the reasons our (Canadian) 'proportion of seniors' is lower than most of the other members of the OECD is our high level of immigration. (BTW, they're also the reason we've still got an almost reasonable birth rate ... our immigrant families have more children than your typical Canadian family.)

[Kelda]

UK is getting a lot like that too..