Page 345 - Essencials of Sociology

318 CHAPTER 10 Gender and Age

FIGURE 10.10 The Graying of the Globe

Europe
North
America
Asia
Lowest percentage
of population age 65
and older
Africa
1. Uganda (2.1%)
South
2. Niger (2.3%) America
3. Afghanistan (2.5%)
Australia
Highest percentage of h f
population age 65 and older Percentage of a Country’s Population Age 65 and Older
The least: 2.1% to 3.9%
1. Japan (23.1%)
The middle range: 4.1% to 9.9%
2. Germany (20.6%)
The most: 10.2% to 23.1%
3. Italy (20.3%) Percentage unknown

Source: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States; 2013:Table 1350.

(Statistical Abstract 2013:Table 1350). In another ten years, half the population of Italy
and Japan will be older than 50 (U.S. Census Bureau 2013). The graying of the globe
is so new that two-thirds of all people who have ever passed age 50 in the history of the world
are alive today (Zaslow 2003).
As the number of elderly continues to grow, analysts have become alarmed about
future liabilities for their care. This issue is especially troubling in western Europe
and Japan, which have the largest percentage of citizens over age 65. The basic issue
is, How can nations provide high-quality care for growing numbers of elderly people
without burdening future generations with impossible taxes? Although more and
more nations around the world are confronting this issue, no one has found a solu-
tion yet.

The Life Span. Although more people are living to old age, the maximum length of
life possible, the life span, has not increased. No one knows, however, just what that
maximum is. We do know that it is at least 122: This was the well-documented age of
Jeanne Louise Calment of France at her death in 1997. If the birth certificate of Tuti
Yusupova in Uzbekistan proves to be genuine, which shows her birth year as 1880, then
life span the maximum length of the human life span exceeds even this number by a comfortable margin. It is also likely
life of a species; for humans, the that advances in genetics will extend the human life span—maybe even to hundreds of
longest that a human has lived
years—a topic we will return to later.