High income - Age dependency ratio, old (% of working-age population)

The value for Age dependency ratio, old (% of working-age population) in High income was 28.67 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 28.67 in 2020 and a minimum value of 13.87 in 1960.

Definition: Age dependency ratio, old, is the ratio of older dependents--people older than 64--to the working-age population--those ages 15-64. Data are shown as the proportion of dependents per 100 working-age population.

Source: World Bank staff estimates based on age distributions of United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision.

See also:

Year Value
1960 13.87
1961 14.05
1962 14.20
1963 14.34
1964 14.47
1965 14.61
1966 14.83
1967 15.04
1968 15.25
1969 15.45
1970 15.64
1971 15.86
1972 16.07
1973 16.25
1974 16.42
1975 16.57
1976 16.81
1977 17.04
1978 17.24
1979 17.36
1980 17.41
1981 17.41
1982 17.33
1983 17.21
1984 17.15
1985 17.17
1986 17.33
1987 17.55
1988 17.81
1989 18.07
1990 18.32
1991 18.59
1992 18.87
1993 19.10
1994 19.31
1995 19.48
1996 19.70
1997 19.89
1998 20.07
1999 20.25
2000 20.44
2001 20.65
2002 20.86
2003 21.09
2004 21.30
2005 21.50
2006 21.72
2007 21.93
2008 22.15
2009 22.43
2010 22.80
2011 23.25
2012 23.79
2013 24.38
2014 25.00
2015 25.62
2016 26.22
2017 26.82
2018 27.41
2019 28.02
2020 28.67

Development Relevance: Patterns of development in a country are partly determined by the age composition of its population. Different age groups have different impacts on both the environment and on infrastructure needs. Therefore the age structure of a population is useful for analyzing resource use and formulating future policy and planning goals with regards infrastructure and development.

Limitations and Exceptions: Because the five-year age group is the cohort unit and five-year period data are used in the United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects, interpolations to obtain annual data or single age structure may not reflect actual events or age composition. For more information, see the original source.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Dependency ratios capture variations in the proportions of children, elderly people, and working-age people in the population that imply the dependency burden that the working-age population bears in relation to children and the elderly. But dependency ratios show only the age composition of a population, not economic dependency. Some children and elderly people are part of the labor force, and many working-age people are not. Age structure in the World Bank's population estimates is based on the age structure in United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects. For more information, see the original source.

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Health Indicators

Sub-Topic: Population