The situation of the aging population in Africa

Abstract

As is well known, the process of population aging is a function of the interplay of mortality and fertility rates in which a shift from high to low levels of mortality and fertility takes place. In today's developed regions such shifts took place over a long period of time and subsequent to internally-generated improvements in the socio-economic conditions and the general standard of living of the people. The breakthroughs achieved in preventive and curative medicine resulted in significant industrial culture and urbanization engendered new attitudes and values, among which the preference for the smaller nuclear family was one. Consequently, the decline in mortality and fertility proceeded in tandem, albeit at different rates in the initial stages, leading to the reduction of the dependent youthful segment of the population and to the increase of the active age group.