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Aging in Modern and Traditional Societies
| Article
# : |
11624 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
9 / 1986 |
6,199 Words |
| Author
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Ellen C. Holmes
Ellen C. Rhoads Holmes is an assistant professor of
gerentology specializing in cross-cultural gerontology at
Wichita State University in Kansas. |
For those who live in the United States, it is almost impossible not be aware that aging has become an issue of importance in recent years. Hardly a day passes that we do not see newspaper or television reports on some aspect of aging or older people - human interest stories, scientific reports, coverage of problems being experienced by an individual or a group, or expressions of societal concern about how we cope with the growing number of old people. Our situation, however, is not unique.
A recent United Nations report shows that the number of aged has been increasing world wide, and the predictions are that this trend will continue. While the increase from 1975 to the year 2000 is not expected to be too dramatic, by 2025 the number of people 60 years of age or older will have increased from 8 percent to about 20 percent of the population in East Asian countries, which includes China and Japan. In other regions the change will be more gradual: an increase of from 5 percent to 7 percent in Africa and from 6 percent to 11 percent in Latin America. It is also suggested that in European countries and North America over 20 percent of the population will be 60 or older in 2025.
Life expectancy, the average number of years a person at birth can expect to live, is also on the increase everywhere. This is a general reflection of improving health technology. In many parts of the world we are seeing the effects of control or elimination of infectious diseases that often killed people long before they reached old age. Since Western industrialized societies have benefited most and longest from such developments, our life expectancy now increases very
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