Challenges posed by the aging population (be specific) Research Paper

Challenges posed by the aging population (be specific) - Research Paper Example The difference in opinion is as a result of new findings of health care resources usage by the elderly and also from the recognition of the responses of elder patient in the past. Conversely, these changes bring some opportunities since people have longer and healthy lives. This essay is to present the challenges posed by an aging population and how the government, society and the businesses have responded to the whole issue. First, it is important to see the reason as to why the population is aging by looking at the population trends in the past half century (Neumark, 2009). Aging people are in most countries of the world. There are some factors behind this trend. For instance, longevity has increased in most parts of the world compared to the previous years. Globally, the life expectancy has increased from the age of 48 years in the 50s to 68 years presently. For the past 50 years, community division project aims to make the expectancy reach 76 years. In addition, the fertility rate of the world fell from five kids per woman in the 1950s to approximately 2.5 presently. Fertility is further projected to decline to about 2.2 in the next 50 years. Similarly, aging of a large number of children born after the World War II coupled by an equal boom elsewhere in the world are leading to a generation of an older people. UN estimates that the global number of old people will increase from 800 million currently to more than 2 billion by 2050 (equivalent to 22 percent of the entire population) (Shapner, 2006) Aging of a community presents many challenges and raises concerns on the pace of the future economic progress, financial integrity of pension systems and health care services and operation, and the health of the elderly (Shapner, 2006). Economic prosperity of any given economy depends crucially on the quality and size of the labor force to be productive and maximize on the available resources. From