10-01-98
GENEVA (AP) -- Japan and Italy will lead the world trend toward an increasingly older population over the next two decades, the U.N. health agency predicted Thursday.
Life expectancy around the globe has been increasing steadily, reaching 62 years in developing countries in 1990, the World Health Organization said.
By 2020 there will be more than 1 billion people 60 years or older in the world, nearly double the current number, WHO said.
The ``oldest'' countries that year will be Japan and Italy, each with 31 percent of their populations at least 60, it said. They will be followed by Greece, Switzerland and Finland at 28 percent.
The agency said Greece and Italy are the current leaders, at 23 percent, followed by Germany, Japan and Sweden at 22 percent.
Way down on the list, at No. 34, is the United States, with only 16 percent of its population having reached 60 years. But that is expected to improve to 23 percent by 2020. Russia is just ahead of the United States in the list.
Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO director-general, said ``the greatest challenge of the 21st century will be to improve the quality of life as well as age.''
WHO's projections for the year 2020, with 1998 rankings and percentages in parentheses: 31 percent of population aged 60 or more
1. Japan (3, 22 percent)
2. Italy (2, 23 percent) 28 percent
3. Greece (1, 23 percent)
4. Switzerland (21, 19 percent) 27 percent
6. Spain (7, 21 percent)
7. Netherlands (29, 18 percent)
8. France (10, 21 percent)
9. Germany (3, 22 percent)
10. Belgium (6, 21 percent)
11. Sweden (5, 22 percent) 26 percent
12. Slovenia (23, 19 percent)
13. Austria (16, 19 percent)
14. Portugal (9, 21 percent) 25 percent
15. Britain (11, 21 percent)
16. Denmark (15, 19 percent)
17. Canada (33, 16 percent)
18. Croatia (13, 20 percent)
19. Bulgaria (8, 21 percent)
20. Luxembourg (19, 19 percent)
21. Norway (18, 19 percent) 24 percent
22. Estonia (22, 19 percent)
23. Hungary (17, 19 percent)
24. Czech Republic (31, 17 percent)
25. Malta (--)
26. Ukraine (12, 20 percent)
27. Singapore (--) 23 percent
28. Latvia (14, 20 percent)<
29. Bosnia-Herzegovina (--)
30. Russia (27, 18 percent)
31. United States (34, 16 percent)
AP-NY-10-01-98 1731EDT