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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Population aging and future course of Ghana's age structure | | Author(s) | Chuks J Mba |
| Journal title | Hallym International Journal of Aging, vol 8, no 1, 2006 |
| Pages | pp 47-64 |
| Source | http://baywood.com |
| Keywords | Age group distribution statistics ; Demography ; Ageing process ; Ghana. |
| Annotation | Although Ghana can still be classified as a youthful population, reductions in fertility and mortality have resulted in increase in both the proportion and absolute number of older people (age 60+) as evidenced by 1960-2000 census results and estimates from other sources. This article considers the phenomenon of population ageing and the future course of the age structure in Ghana. Although Ghana's age-sex structure has not changed much during the period 1996-2000, both the number and proportion of those aged 60+ have been increasing. Ghana has one of the highest proportions of older people in sub-Saharan Africa, which increased from 4.9% in 1960 to 7.2% in 2000, while the number rose from 0.3 million to 1.4 million over the same period (an increase of 36.7%). With continued campaigns to reduce fertility and mortality, it is expected that this proportion will rise in the coming decades. Projections indicate that by 2050 the proportion of children under 15 will reduce to 22.3% while the aged population will account for 14.1% of the total population. In absolute numbers, those aged 60+ will increase from 1.5 million in 2010 to 2.8 million in 2030, and to 5.7 million by 2050. The results of indicators of population ageing suggest that Ghana's median age is envisaged to rise to 23.5 in 2020 representing an intermediate population, and to 31.7 by 2050, representing an old population. It is projected that overall dependency ratio will decline to 57.2 by 2050, while the aged dependency ratio will rise to 22.2% by 2050. Thus, the next few decades will witness remarkable shifts in Ghana's population age structure towards older ages as a result of the decline in the proportion of children under 15. The envisaged shifts in Ghana's age structure towards older people will be concentrated especially among the young old (those aged 60-69) because the extreme aged dependency ratio has changed only minutely during the projection period, while the family support ratio declined. Population ageing, therefore, should not be something that Ghana should try to avoid, but rather should be viewed as an outcome of desirable demographic progress that nevertheless requires adjustment from social institutions. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-080403203 A |
| Classmark | S6: S8: BG: 7MS |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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