Number of elderly on rise everywhere

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Number of Elderly Criminals On the Rise The number of crimes committed by senior citizens has risen sharply over the last decade, especially serous crimes such as sexual assault, murder and arson.

According to research by Dr. Jang Joon-oh at the Korean Institute of Criminology, the number of senior citizen criminals has more than doubled in 10 years between 1996 and 2006, from 34,492 to 82,323, while the total number of criminals in Korea stayed about the same. Therefore, the percentage of offenders aged 61 or more rose from 1.8 percent in 1996 to 4.3 percent in 2006. On the other hand, the percentage of young criminals in their twenties dropped from 24.4 percent in 1996 to 15.8 percent in 2006, and the thirties from 32.5 percent to 23.8 percent.

More senior citizens are committing serious crimes than ever. The number of senior citizens who committed sexual crimes in 1996 was 94, but this jumped more than four-fold to 423 in 2006. The number of senior citizens who committed murder soared three-fold from 20 to 59, and elderly arsonists increased five-fold, from seven to 46.

"The general trend of an ageing society partly contributed to the increase in the number of elderly criminals, but the sharp rise seems to have more to do with the fact that more and more aged people are deserted or marginalized by society," said an official at the Ministry of Justice

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LONDON, England / BBC News / January 13, 2009

The UK's ageing population is set to cause a huge rise in the number of older people living with long-term illnesses, campaigners have said.

Help the Aged says that by 2025 there will be a big increase in the number of over-65s with heart disease, osteoporosis and dementia.

It warned this could stretch the NHS to breaking point and called for more research into these conditions.

But the Department of Health said measures were being taken to cope.

Having analysed current disease patterns and predictions about the ageing population, Help the Aged made a number of estimates about the future levels of ill health in the elderly population.

The charity said there was likely to be a 46% rise in the number of people living with the effects of stroke, from 601,000 now to 878,000 by the mid 2020s.

And the researchers said those living with late-onset dementia would go up 50% to one million while the number of elderly people with heart disease would rise by 42% to 2.6 million.

Levels of incontinence and osteoporosis were also likely to rise by a third, while sight problems could go up by over half, the charity has claimed.

In total, more than six million elderly people could be living with a life-limiting condition by 2025 - a 45% rise, Help the Aged concluded.

These rises mostly mirror the expected increase in the over-65 population which stands at just under 10 million in the UK currently, but will reach about 14 million in 16 years' time.

And the researchers warned such a scenario could see the cost of caring for older people rise from £40bn a year to over £50bn.

'Breaking point'

Dr Lorna Layward, from Help the Aged, said: "Unless we find ways to prevent or treat these conditions, the strain on society and its infrastructure will reach breaking point.

"More attention and funding must be directed to researching the causes, prevention and treatment of the diseases and disabilities that become increasingly common with age."

But the government said it was taking the consequences of the ageing population seriously.

The Department of Health said it would soon be publishing plans for an overhaul of social care, while more money than ever was being put into research for these conditions.

A spokesman said the vascular screening programme which was being phased in from this year would save lives by preventing heart attacks and strokes.

He added: "The government is already preparing for the pressures of an ageing population."

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China Begins to Address a Coming Wave of Elderly

How will China deal with elderly care in the coming years? Dune Lawrence of the New York Times writes on the looming crisis:

Beijing Sunshine Care House opened in January 2008, seeking to attract the city’s elderly with a tropical conservatory, billiard room and calligraphy studio. By the end of this year, the retirement home will triple the number of beds to 700 — and probably fill them all.

“It’s an industry with a great market,” says Zhao Liangling, Sunshine’s director, perched on a white leather armchair in her office.

Ms. Zhao’s expanding customer base reflects a potential threat to China far greater than the current economic slowdown. The world’s third-largest economy is aging so rapidly that by 2050, there may be only two working-age people for every senior citizen, compared with 13 to one now.

That increases the urgency of the government’s pledge to expand the Chinese social safety net and make retirement benefits and health care accessible to as many of its 1.3 billion residents as possible. China’s graying also requires a cultural shift as the tradition of families caring for aging relatives at home becomes more difficult

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WASHINGTON -- The world's 65-and-older population will triple by mid-century to 1 in 6 people, leaving the United States and other nations struggling to support elderly people

The number of senior citizens already has jumped 23% since 2000 to 516 million, according to census estimates released on Tuesday. That's more than double the growth rate for the general population.

The world's population has been graying for many years because of declining births and medical advances that have extended life spans. As the fastest-growing age group, seniors now comprise less than 8% of the world's 6.8 billion people. But demographers warn the biggest shift is yet to come. They cite a coming wave of retirements from baby boomers and China's Red Guard generation that will shrink pensions and add to health care costs.

Germany, Italy, Japan and Monaco have the most senior citizens, with 20% or more of their people 65 and older.

In the United States, residents who are 65 and older currently make up 13% of the population, but that will double to 88.5 million by mid-century. In two years, the oldest of the baby boomers will start turning 65. The baby boomer bulge will continue padding the senior population year after year, growing to 1 in 5 U.S. residents by 2030.

"The 2020s for most of the developed world will be an era of fiscal crisis, with a real long-term stagnation in economic growth and ugly political battles over old-age benefits cuts," said Richard Jackson, director of the Global Aging Initiative at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

In the United States, Medicare is projected to become insolvent by 2017, and President Barack Obama has said that overhauling Social Security and Medicare is critical.

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