Reducing fertility and increasing longevity leads to a rapid aging of the world's population and can have a very negative impact on the economic and social development of a number of states. These are the main provisions of the UN report "Development in an Aging World", presented on Tuesday in New York.

According to the forecasts of experts of the international organization, by 2050 the number of people of retirement age in the world can reach 2 billion people, whereas in 2005 there were 670 million people over the age of 60 living on the planet.

Europe is now the "oldest" part of the world, but in the near future the aging trend will embrace the whole world, and in developing countries this process may be even more rapid than in the old world. According to the UN forecasts, by the middle of the century 80% of older people will live in developing countries.

The change in the age composition of the world's population is especially dangerous for countries with a low level of development of the pension system, the report says.. In the absence of serious reforms in this area, more than 1.2 billion older people may be on the verge of poverty.

A sharp increase in the number of old people poses new long-term challenges for national health systems. At the same time, experts say, the main increase in healthcare costs will be associated not so much with the influx of elderly patients as with the introduction of new expensive technologies, rising prices for medicines and medical insurance, as well as inefficient spending of budget funds.

Medicinform. Net.

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