Young and Aged Populations

Abstract

The peoples of the Western Hemisphere are in a young stage of demographic evolution. Except for the populations of the United States and Canada, those of Latin America have still a large proportion (about 40 per cent) of children and very few (less than 5 per cent) old persons. They will enter the stage of population "aging" sometime in the near or distant future, depend ing on how soon the fertility rate will follow the now declining death rate. This will lead these populations to a "demographic maturity" by lessening their bur den of dependency and by increasing the productivity of their peoples.