Aging in European Countries

　　We have to realise how old, how very old, we are. Nations are classified as "aged" when they have 7 per cent or more of their people aged 65 or above, and by about 1970 every one of the advanced countries had become like this. Of the really ancient societies, with over 13 per cent above 65, all are in Northwestern Europe. At the beginning of the 1980's East Germany had 15.6 per cent, Austria,

　　Sweden, West Germany and France had 13.4 per cent or above, and England and Wales 13.3 per cent. Scotland had 12.3 per cent. Northern Ireland 10.8 percent and the United States 9.9 per cent. We know that we are getting even older, and that the nearer a society approximates to zero population growth, the older its population is likely to be - at least, for any future that concerns us now.

　　To these now familiar facts a number of further facts may be added, some of them only recently recognised. There is the apparent paradox that the effective cause of the high proportion of the old is births rather than deaths. There is the economic principle that the dependency ratio - the degree to which those who cannot earn depend for a living on those who can - is more advantageous in older societies like ours than in the younger societies of the developing world, because lots of dependent babies are more of a liability than numbers of the inactive aged. There is the appreciation of the salient historical truth that the aging or advanced societies has been a sudden change.

　　If "revolution" is a rapid resettlement of the social structure, and if the age composition of the society counts as a very important aspect of that social structure, then there has been a social revolution in European and particularly Western European society within the lifetime of everyone over 50. Taken together, these things have implications which are only beginning to be acknowledged. These facts and circumstances were well to the fore earlier this year at a world gathering about aging as a challenge to science and to policy, held at Vichy in France.

　　There is often resistance to the idea that it is because the birthrate fell earlier in Western and Northwestern Europe than elsewhere, rather than because of any change in the death rate, that we have grown so old. But this is what elementary demography makes clear. Long life is altering our society, of course, but in experiential terms. We have among us a very much greater experience of continued living than any society that has ever preceded us anywhere, and this will continue. But too much of that lengthened experience, even in the wealthy West, will be experience of poverty and neglect, unless we do something about it .

　　If you are now in your thirties, you ought to be aware that you can expect to live nearly one third of the rest of your life after the age of 60. The older you are now, of course, the greater this proportion will be, and greater still if you are a woman. Expectation of life is a slippery figure, very easy to get wrong at the highest ages. At Vichy the demographers were telling each other that their estimates of how many old there would be and how long they will live in countries like England and Wales are due for revision upwards.

　　歐洲國家的老齡化

　　我們不得不認識到我們多大歲數(shù)了，有多老了。當有7％或更多的65歲或65歲以上的人時，這些國家就被列為"老齡化"國家。到大約1970年，每一個發(fā)展國家就成了這樣的國家。65歲以上的人超過13％的真正的老年人社會，都在西北歐。20世紀80年代初，東德有15.6％的人超過65歲，在奧地利、瑞典、西德和法國，這個比率為13.4%或更高，英格蘭和威爾士有13.3%，蘇格蘭有12.3%，北愛爾蘭有10.8％，美國有9.9%。我們知道人類在日益變老，人口增長率接近于零的社會離我們越近，人口越可能呈老齡化的趨勢，至少就與影響我們的未來來說是這樣的。

　　更多的現(xiàn)實，這其中有些只是近來才認識到，可能會加入到這些熟悉的現(xiàn)實中。有這樣一個明顯的似是而非的論點：造成老年人比率高的實際原因是出生人數(shù)而不是死亡人數(shù)。有一條經濟原則：撫養(yǎng)率――不能自食其力的人依靠能掙錢養(yǎng)家的人的程度――在我們這樣的更為老齡化的社會里比在發(fā)展中世界的較年輕社會里要有利一些，因為大量的無法獨立的孩子與一定數(shù)的喪失工作能力的老年人相比，更是個負擔。有對這樣一個明顯的歷史真實的正確評價：先進社會的老齡化一直以來都是一種突變。

　　如果"革命"是對社會結構的迅速重建，如果社會的年齡構成被看作社會結構的一個非常重要的方面，那么在歐洲，特別是每一個人的壽命超過50歲的西歐，已經有一場革命。綜上所述，人們只是剛剛開始認識到這意味著什么。這些事實和情況早些時候在法國維希舉行的一個世界大會上被視為科學家和政策的挑戰(zhàn)而置于顯著的地位。

　　我們人口的老齡化，是因為在西歐和西北歐出生率比其他地方下降得早，百不是因為死亡率發(fā)生了一些變化。對這一觀點經常有人不以為然，但這是通過基本的人口統(tǒng)計學澄清的事實。當然，長壽正改變著我們的社會，但這只是經驗論。我們之中有一種比先于我們的任何社會多得多的繼續(xù)生存的經歷，這種經歷將繼續(xù)下去。除非我們能在這方面采取措施，即使在富裕的西方，太多的這種經歷將被，視為貧窮和荒廢的過去。你現(xiàn)年三十幾歲，你應當知道，你可以指望在活到60 歲以后再活上差不多15年�，F(xiàn)在你年紀越大，這個比例就越高。如果你是女性，這個比例還會更大。預期壽命不是一個固定數(shù)字，在最高年齡上很容易弄錯。在維希，人口學家互相轉告，在像英格蘭和威爾士這些國家，他們對將有多少老人和他們能活多久的估計應向上調整。