The Impact of an Ageing Population

As we all know, one of the global issues, ageing population has affected the worldwide and are known to increase within the next few decades. This essay will analyse the impact of ageing population where it is one of the main impacts of global issues in the 21st century today which have influences on not only socially and economically but also politically as well from the Ministry of Health. In addition, the ageing population have effects from different perspectives such as towards the New Zealand Society itself and also New Zealand companies, especially retirement homes like ‘The Selwyn Foundation’. Throughout the world, ageing population has affected most countries around the world. In the past few years, there have been high birth rates and death rates. However, the number of proportion for elderly has increased rapidly which has never been seen before by the history of civilization (United Nation: Programme on Ageing, n.d.). By 2050, United Nations have predicted that the number of elderly over 60 years old will increase from 10 to 22 percent alone. Especially in Europe, the life expectancy is greater than other parts of the world where the population that is over 60 years old was already one third during 1995 (UNECE Ministerial Conference on Ageing, n.d.). In 2020, it is predicted that one out of four people will be at least 60 years of age. As well, at the same time the younger population will be decreasing. On the other hand, in New Zealand, the age will increase significantly over the next 50 years. Nevertheless, as the biggest city in New Zealand, Auckland still remains a young average population compared to other cities where only 16 per cent forecast to be aged above 65 years by 2026 (Elderly Population a future concern, 2010). However, currently there has been wide debate about whether New Zealand should prepare for population ageing by increasing national savings (Bryant, John., Guest, Ross., & Scobie, Grant, 2003) in order to achieve target growth to