Like globalization, population aging is a universal force with the power to shape the future. By 2050 the number of people aged 60 and over in the world will increase from 600 million today to almost 2 billion. In Japan, the proportion of the population aged 65 or over will climb from 17.2 percent in 2000 to 25.8 percent by 2015. In countries like Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico and Singapore, the 65 and older population is set to increase by 50 percent at the same time. In many developing countries, the proportion of children is expected to fall from 33 percent to 22 percent by 2050, and the elderly population to rise from 8 percent to 19 percent.

This remarkable transition will result in the old and the young representing an equal share of the world's population by midcentury. The policy implications for social services, and for building and strengthening the institutional capacity for managing the challenge at national and international levels, are large. With the adoption of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Aging in April 2002, the issue is now on the international agenda.

One of the great success stories of the 20th century, albeit with disquieting pockets of exception, was the incorporation of billions of people into an expanding network of public-health systems, greatly reducing the incidence of preventable diseases and avoidable deaths.