The world's aging population: By the numbers

There are 810 million people over the age of 60 living on Earth today. By 2050, there will be nearly 2 billion.

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last updated 8 January 2015

In many developed nations, aging populations are credited to rising standards of living and improved access to health care — and are thus treated as a "celebrated sign of progress," says Emily Alpert at the Los Angeles Times. But longer lifespans also create population booms of senior citizens that many governments are unprepared to deal with. According to a new United Nations report, within the next few decades, the global population of adults 60 or older will increase to nearly 2 billion. What kind of pressure will that place on overburdened countries unequipped to handle the load? Here, a brief look at our increasingly graying world population, by the numbers: