Aging Gracefully (Unit 9)

The original article, Growing Old, Baby Boomer Style by Tom Valleo can be read online here at WebMD and here at CBS News. It was originally published in 2006. Some things have certainly changed since it was written, such as the predicted worker shortage of 2010.

[Click on the population pyramid on the left to see an animated projection of Japan's past and future population.]

In Japan, Seniors With an Edge was published in 2007 by the NYT. You may need to log in to the NYT to read it online, or read Google's cache of the page.

Read more at Japan's National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. Be sure to see the animated population pyramid for Japan. They have a full report of Japan's population statistics (pdf).

The demographic transition to a stable industrial population is a centuries-long process that is ongoing in much of the world now.

Note that there are about four million births in the United States annually–only slightly below the peak years of the 1946-1964 Baby Boom.

The U.S. Census Bureau has a database of population information about many other countries of the world, too.

What is the population of the world? Over 6.8 billion in 2010!

Geohive, CensusScope, and the Population Reference Bureau

The Population Reference Bureau is a great site for finding population and statistical information and displaying it. For example, you can find and display the senior fraction of the population, or see a map that displays the projected percentage change in population from 2008-2050. Try visiting the DataFinder part of the site and click on World>Population Trends or World>Economic.

CensusScope is a similar data tool, but it is focused on the United States. The U.S. Age Distribution (or Population Pyramid) i

s shown here. You can find maps of the geography of multiracialism or even where the elderly live.

Geohive is more global-minded than CensusScope, but doesn't have as many graphs, charts, and maps as DataFinder. It still has some unique displays. When will India's population growth push it past China? Around 2030, if the projections are correct. Which countries have the largest populations? Japan is still barely in the top 10, but not for long. Which countries have the largest land area?

Worldmapper

Worldmapper is an interesting site, especially for students, teachers, and people who are interested in the world. They have created about 700 maps which display information in a visual, map form. The sizes of countries are distorted to show various kinds of information in a proportional way. This map shows the number of elderly people in the country.

© Copyright 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).

Other maps show distribution patterns of food, goods, resources, work, income, wealth, health, education, poverty, violence, cause of death, age of death, communication, religion, language, and other measurable qualities. This site also allows you to download high-resolution images, PDFs, Excel or OpenDoc data spreadsheets, and other resources under a Creative Commons license.