Each third person in Moldova will pass retirement age in 2050, UNPFA

The number of persons aged over 60 in Moldova remained practically unchanged during the last few years. They make up 13.7% of the total population. In rural areas, the persons older than 60 constitute 14.9% of the rural population, as against 12.0% in urban areas, Info-Prim Neo reports, quoting the National Bureau of Statistics. Among the main causes of death among persons of this age are the diseases of the circulatory apparatus (70.5% of deaths in this age bracket), malignant tumors (11.3%) and diseases of the digestive apparatus (6.8%). The average length of life of women aged older than 60 is plus 18 years, while of men – plus 15 years. Twenty years ago, Moldova was considered a young country as the persons older than 60 made up less than 12%, which is considered the demographic aging limit. Today the population continues to grow older. Owing to the low birth rate and rising life expectancy at birth, it is anticipated that each third person in Moldova in 2050 will pass retirement age (62 years for men and 57 years for women), it is said in a communique issued by the United Nations Population Fund on the occasion of the International Day of Older Persons marked on October 1. Demographic aging impacts the social protection system. “We will have fewer working adults who will have to maintain a larger number of economically inactive persons – children and elderly people – with the latter being larger in number and accounting for a larger volume of allocations in the social protection system,” said Boris Galca, UNFPA Program Coordinator in Moldova. According to the expert, there are reasons to think that the persons who reached retirement age will be more economically active the coming years than their predecessors. “The elderly persons will have to continue doing their jobs for a longer period of time as the young employees will not be able to cover the social costs for maintaining the elderly because they will be low in number,” Boris Galca says in the communique issued by the UNFPA. There were 490,500 persons aged 60 and over in Moldova at the start of 2009. Of them, 61% were women, the National Bureau of Statistics said. 13.8% were aged over 80. About 70% of the working persons aged 60 were from rural areas. 62% of them worked in agriculture.