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Population ages 65 and above (% of total population)

Population ages 65 and above as a percentage of the total population. Population is based on the de facto definition of population, which counts all residents regardless of legal status or citizenship.

World Population Prospects, United Nations (UN), publisher: UN Population Division

Health: Population: Structure

Percentage

Annual

Weighted average

Methodology: Population structure by age and sex in the World Bank's estimates is based on age/sex distributions of the population in United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects. Statistical concept(s): Proportion of population by age and/or sex describes the proportion of the population in the category out of total (or male total or female total). Population estimates are dependent on the demographic components of change that are fertility, mortality and migration. As the age/sex distribution of population continues to change throughout the time even within a year, a reference time in the year that the estimate refers to is needed, such as mid-year, end-year or beginning of year. The values shown are midyear estimates.

Patterns of development in a country are partly determined by the age composition of its population. Different age groups have different impacts on both the environment and on infrastructure needs. Therefore the age structure of a population is useful for analyzing resource use and formulating future policy and planning goals with regards infrastructure and development. This indicator is used for calculating age dependency ratio (percent of working-age population). The age dependency ratio is the ratio of the sum of the population aged 0-14 and the population aged 65 and above to the population aged 15-64. In many developing countries, the once rapidly growing population group of the under-15 population is shrinking. As a result, high fertility rates, together with declining mortality rates, are now reflected in the larger share of the 65 and older population.

Because the five-year age group is the cohort unit and five-year period data are used in the United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects, interpolations to obtain annual data or single age structure may not reflect actual events or age composition. For more information, see the original source.

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