Experts gathered at the U to talk about those who are a bit older and how to be a bit wiser about global aging.
The 13th Annual Siciliano Forum was held Wednesday and Thursday in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, as experts discussed how global aging will have economic and societal effects in future years.
The forum’s three keynote speakers agreed that the increase in global aging is largely because of the decrease in the fertility rate, meaning fewer people are having children, which increases the average age of the world’s population.
“(Global) aging is happening so much faster now,” said Eileen Crimmins, AARP chairwoman of the department of gerontology at the University of Southern California. It is inevitable that fertility rates are going to remain low, she said.
The world’s population of people more than 65 years old is steadily increasing and is expected to grow dramatically by 2050. Many of the world’s less-developed countries could potentially see an increase of about 450 percent, said Alexandre Kalache, the former director of the World Health Organization’s Programme on Ageing and Health. The growth of aging populations is going to have “tremendous impact” throughout the world, he said.
The keynote speakers did not explicitly detail what that impact would be.
When it comes to the long-term effects of an aging population, adapting to change is the real challenge, Kalache said.
Sara Arber, co-director for the Centre for Research on Ageing and Gender at the University of Surrey in England, said there is a gender gap in the mortality rate of aging populations. Women tend to live longer and are more likely to be widowed.
“Widows represent half of the women over 65 and 80 percent over age 80,” Arber said.
Arber also said women in aging populations are more likely to be disabled and to live in poverty.
“We chose this topic to be a little cutting edge and to wake people up,” said Rick Pike, development director for the U’s College of Social and Behavioral Science, which hosted the forum.