ABSTRACT
The proportion of older people in the population has been growing steadily in Great Britain. Census data show that people aged 65 and over represented 13.2% of the population in 1971, 15% in 1981 and 15.8% in 1993. Current projections suggest that the rise in numbers of older people as compared with the rest of the population will continue well into the next century: in 2021 the figure is expected to be 19.4% rising to a peak of 24.6% in 2041. Within the 65+ age group the proportional growth in numbers of those aged 80 and over is even more marked. In 1971 2.3% of the population were over 80. By 1993 it was 3.9% and the numbers are predicted to rise steadily to 9.2% in 2051. As the proportion of older people grows the working population shrinks: the ratio of ‘dependants’, that is people over retirement age and under 16 to people of working age was 63 to 100 in 1992; it is expected to rise to more than 80 to 100 by the middle of the next century.
