Our Ageing World
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 29 December 2022
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For years, the major problem of world demography was thought to be the risk of over-population. Now, it's the fact that the global population is ageing fast.
According to the United Nations, the number of people over 65 is set to double between now and 2050, to 1.6 billion people. And, at the same time, the birth rate in most of the world is falling, often sharply. This demographic shift comes with huge social and economic implications. What are they, and what can we do to cope with them?
Joining David Aaronovitch in The Briefing Room are:
Stephanie Hegarty, BBC Global Population Correspondent Marco Valerio Lo Prete, Economics Editor at Italian State Broadcaster RAI and author of “Italians: The Unhappy Few” Robert Kelly., Professor of Political Science at Pusan National University, South Korea Camilla Cavendish, Senior Fellow at Harvard University Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development at the Oxford Martin School
Producers: Simon Watts, Kirsteen Knight and Octavia Woodward Editor: Richard Vadon Studio manager: Rod Farquhar Production co-ordinators: Sophie Hill and Siobhan Reed
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.9 | I'm David Aronovich. Welcome to the briefing room, the space in the metaverse where you, me, the top experts, and a big subject, get together for 28 minutes. |
| 0:15.4 | Last month, the global population hit 8 billion for the first time. Around 800 million of us are aged over 65. |
| 0:23.9 | By 2050, that number will double to 1.6 billion. |
| 0:28.6 | The population is ageing, fast. |
| 0:31.7 | And birth rates are collapsing. |
| 0:34.5 | Should we be worried? |
| 0:49.3 | Music should we be worried? For years, the accepted mega problem of world demography has been there will be too many of us. Not anymore. |
| 0:51.3 | Now the worry is that we're getting too old. The number of people over 65 is set to double between now and 2050, and at the same time, the birth rate in most of the world is falling, often sharply. It's a whole new, old world, and it comes with huge social and economic implications. What are they? And what should we |
| 1:13.3 | think about doing to cope with them? Step into the briefing room and we'll try to find out. |
| 1:21.8 | First, what do the stats tell us about our direction of travel? Joining me in the briefing room is |
| 1:27.1 | Stephanie Haggerty, |
| 1:28.3 | the BBC's global population correspondent. |
| 1:31.7 | Stephanie, is the world's population getting older? |
| 1:34.0 | Yes, absolutely. |
| 1:35.3 | And pretty much across the board. |
| 1:37.6 | This is a success story |
| 1:39.0 | because we're seeing better healthcare |
| 1:40.6 | and we're seeing better diets. |
| 1:42.8 | So in almost every country, rich and poor, |
| 1:45.7 | people are getting older. How fast is this happening? I mean, in other words, even in what |
| 1:52.1 | we call less developed countries, are people significantly living older faster, if you see what I |
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