Population Ageing and the Well-Being of Older Persons in Thailand ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Section 2: The Demography of Ageing The first step in exploring population ageing and its implications is to examine its demographic dimensions. Every two years, the United Nations Population Division publishes assessments of national populations including estimates by age and sex. The assessments include estimates of current and past levels as well as projections of the future population. Three projections series are provided based on a single set of morality assumptions but differing assumptions concerning the future course of fertility resulting in low, medium and high variants. In this report we rely primarily on the 2006 revision as the source of most national level information presented concerning the demography of ageing in Thailand. When dealing with projections, we utilize the medium variant. The 2006 UN assessment covers a 100 year span from 1950 until 2050 thus enabling examination of combined actual and projected trends over an entire century. We note that two organizations within Thailand have also published projections in recent years although we do not draw on them in this report (NESDB 2007; IPSR 2006). 2.1 Pace of population ageing The high level of fertility in Thailand over much of the twentieth century and the substantially improved survival rates to older ages together account for the steady increase in the number of older persons that has been taking place for well over half a century and is expected to continue into the foreseeable future. Population ageing, as distinct from increases in the number of older persons, only occurs when the growth rate in the numbers of older persons exceeds that of the total population, a situation that has prevailed to any great extent only in recent decades but is anticipated to be even more pronounced in the coming decades. Thus substantial increases in the numbers of the older persons can occur in the absence of population ageing if the overall population growth rate is high. As Figure 2.1 shows, the population age 60 and over more than doubled in Thailand between 1950 and 1975 even though the per cent of the total population in these older ages increased only from 5.0 to 5.5 per cent. Starting in 1980, however, as overall population growth slowed but the rate of increase in older persons remained high, indeed even increased, population ageing and the size of the older population increased hand in hand. Population ageing as it is occurring in much of Asia, including Thailand, is taking place at a far faster pace than historically has been true for developed countries in the West. For example, the amount of time it took for the per cent of the population in ages 65 and over to double from 7 per cent to 14 per cent took many decades in the developed countries of the West (UN 1956). In contrast, the 2006 UN projections indicate in Thailand it will take just a little over two decades. Clearly Thailand will need to adapt much more rapidly to the transformation to a older 4
Section 2: The Demography of Ageing population than has been the case for Western societies in the past. At the same time, however, this adaptation will be occurring in a very different social, economic and technological environment. 2.2 Determinants of population ageing Changes in the age structure of a population, including population ageing, is determined by the past trends in fertility, mortality and migration. For Thailand at the national level, migration has been a relatively minor influence at least for the legally resident population. Declining fertility, as measured by the total fertility rate (see Figure 1.1 and Table 2.1) has been sharply reducing the share of children within the total population and is the driving demographic determinant of the recent population ageing in Thailand. Improving survival rates, as indicated in Table 2.1 by increasing life expectancy at birth, have also characterized the last half of the twentieth century and are anticipated to continue during coming decades. The increased mortality associated with the AIDS epidemic disproportionately affected men in Thailand and accounts for the reduction in male life expectancy at the turn of the 21st century. The anticipated resumption of improvement in life expectancy for men reflects Thailand’s success in combating the AIDS epidemic and in providing widespread antiretroviral therapy to persons who need it (Revenga et al. 2006; UNDP 2004). 5
Page 3 and 4: Papers in Population Ageing No. 5 P
Page 5 and 6: Foreword This report is the fifth i
Page 7 and 8: Contents Acknowledgements .........
Page 9 and 10: Executive Summary Introduction Popu
Page 11 and 12: part a result of the far higher lev
Page 13 and 14: Section 1: Introduction 1.1 Populat
Page 15: Section 1: Introduction we make ext
Page 19 and 20: Section 2: The Demography of Ageing
Page 27 and 28: Section 3: Demographic, Social and
Page 45 and 46: Section 4: Health Status Moreover,
Page 47 and 48: Section 4: Health Status Problems w
Page 49: Section 4: Health Status similar to
Page 52 and 53: Section 5: Family support and inter
Page 66 and 67:
Section 5: Family support and inter
Page 68 and 69:
Section 5: Family support and inter
Page 70 and 71:
Section 6: Policy and Programme Res
Page 72 and 73:
Page 74 and 75:
Page 76 and 77:
Page 78 and 79:
Section 7: Key findings and recomme
Page 80 and 81:
Section 7: Key findings and recomme
Page 82 and 83:
Endnotes 1 On gender and ageing see
Page 84 and 85:
Bibliography Bryant, J. 2005. Proje
Page 86 and 87:
Knodel, John, Napaporn Chayovan, Si
Page 88:
Verbrugge, Lois. 1989. The Twain Me
show all

Population Ageing and the Well-Being of Older Persons in Thailand ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?