The oldest old are changing Canada

Mr. Légaré, a specialist in the study of population aging, and his team have collated the most recent studies showing that "oldest old" Canadians are on track to occupy an increasingly important place in the population. "We need to distinguish these "over 85s" from today's 'over 65s', because they will have distinct characteristics in terms of education, socio-economic status and state of health," he says. In the years to come, this new demographic category will begin to include the baby-boomers, who will bring with them a new set of social issues. "They are more highly educated, wealthier and in better health, as a group, than those who are currently the oldest people in Canada, and they will need new kinds of services," points out Yann Décarie, searcher at the National Institute of Scientific Research, the report's second author.

The authors argue that Canada should set up a multidisciplinary panel of researchers and policy makers with a common interest in confronting the repercussions of the aging of the population. Such a structure already exists in Britain, where the New Dynamics of aging programme has established Modeling Aging Population to 2030, focused on the consequences of population aging. It would be highly desirable for this type of research programme to be mirrored in Canada, the authors conclude.

The report, in french, can be found at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/pclc/vol3/iss2/1/