Population aging and future course of Ghana's age structure

Abstract

Although Ghana can still be classified as a youthful population (Ghana Statistical Service, 2005; United Nations, 2005), reductions in fertility and mortality have resulted in increase in both the proportion and absolute number of elderly population (persons aged 60 years and over) as evidenced by 1960-2000 census results and estimates from other sources. With the proportion of the elderly population currently at 7.2%, Ghana has one of the highest proportion of persons aged 60+ years in sub-Saharan Africa. This article attempts to make a modest contribution toward raising awareness regarding the phenomenon of population aging and the future course of the age structure in the Ghanaian context. Although Ghana's age-sex structure has not changed much during 1960-2000 period, both the number and proportion of persons aged 60 years and over have been increasing. The proportion of the elderly to the total population increased from 4.9% in 1960 to 7.2% in 2000, while the number rose from 0.3 million to 1.4 million over the same period (an increase of 367%). With continued campaigns to reduce fertility and mortality, it is expected that this proportion will rise in the coming decades. Projection results indicate that by 2050, the proportion of children under 15 years will reduce to 22.3% while the aged population will account for 14.1% of the total population. In absolute numbers, persons aged 60 years and over will increase from 1.5 million in 2010 to 2.8 million in 2030, and then to 5.7 million. The results of indicators of population aging suggest that Ghana's median age is envisaged to rise to 23.5 years in 2020, representing an intermediate population, and to 31.7 years by 2050, representing an old population. It is projected that the overall dependency ratio will decline to 57.2% by 2050, while the aged dependency ratio will rise to 22.2% by 2050. Thus the coming decades will witness a remarkable shifts in Ghana's population age structure toward older ages as a result of decline in the proportion of children under 15 years. The envisaged shifts in Ghana's age structure toward the elderly will be concentrated especially among the young old, that is, those aged 60-69 years because the extreme aged dependency ratio has changed only minutely during the projection period, while the family support ratio declined. Population aging, therefore, should not be something that Ghana should try to avoid, but rather should be viewed as an outcome of desirable demographic progress that nevertheless requires adjustment from social institutions. © 2007, Institute of Aging Studies.