The UN report World Population Ageing 2007 says that the increasing age of populations now evident around the world is unique in human history.

Population ageing is unprecedented, a process without parallel in the history of humanity. A population ages when increases in the proportion of older persons (that is, those aged 60 years or over) are accompanied by reductions in the proportion of children (persons under age 15) and then by declines in the proportions of persons in the working ages (15 to 59). At the world level, the number of older persons is expected to exceed the number of children for the first time in 2047.

The report also says that population aging is pervasive—occurring in virtually every country in the world—enduring, and irreversible.

Because fertility levels are unlikely to rise again to the high levels common in the past, population ageing is irreversible and the young populations that were common until recently are likely to become rare over the course of the twenty-first century.

This will have major impacts on social welfare programmes, especially for the elderly, as the number of potential workers per retiree shrinks from the present 9 to 4 by mid-century.

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