But with low mortality and people having fewer babies in developed countries, further population ageing is inevitable. They cite Germany as an example. Even allowing for immigration, its population in 2050, they say, “will be substantially older and smaller” than it is now.
The analysis suggests, however, that the health of the elderly is improving. Studies have rarely looked at people over 85, but improvements in their health are likely to translate into improvements also for the very elderly.
Although the number of cancers is rising as people live longer, and chronic diseases such as diabetes and arthritis are increasing, better diagnosis and treatment means that people can live good lives in spite of them. Obesity is expected to cause more health problems, but its consequences can be modified by the use of drugs.
“Traditionally, man has three major periods of life: childhood, adulthood and old age,” they write. “Old age is now evolving into two segments, a third age [young old] and a fourth age [oldest old].”
Some experts have said the prospects for the fourth age are poor — “characterized by vulnerability, with little identity, psychological autonomy and personal control.” But a Danish study found that 30 percent to 40 percent of people today were independent between the ages of 92 and 100. A US study showed that 40 percent of 32 supercentenarians (those more than 110 years old) needed little assistance or were independent. These studies, Christensen and colleagues write, “do not accord with the prediction that the fourth age is in a vegetative state.”
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