New research warns of a population time bomb for developing nations as the ratio of elderly people rises faster than in the industrialised world, BBC online writes Thursday.
A report for the French Institute for Demographic Studies says poorer states have only a short time to set up workable pension schemes. The alternative is the prospect of vast numbers of their elderly people living in poverty.
The trend has not begun in Africas poorest states but experts say it will.
In France the process took more than a century. In China, the worlds most populous country, the process has only just begun – but is projected to take less than a quarter of that time, some 25 years.
In Vietnam and Syria, the French researchers say, “population ageing” is set to rise even faster. The proportion of elderly in these two states is set to double over a mere 17-year period, beginning in a few years time.
This may mean that the governments of developing countries, already strapped for cash, have only got a few more decades of having enough people of working age, who pay taxes, to set up practical retirement finance schemes.
