Designing for the Life Span Segment 2
Designing for the Life Span Segment 2 
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World populations are graying...growing older. The fastest growing segments of the world population are older people- especially in the industrial economies of the northern hemisphere. Over 30,000,000 Americans are over the age of 65- more than the entire population of Canada. Over 100,000,000 Chinese are over the age of 65. The world graphic below reflects current percentages of populations over 65 by continent...
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While 65 is an artificial division among aging segments and bears no relationship to actual physiological or psychological aging, it has become a convention used to define older populations from younger age segments. In every industrialized country and in most agrarian cultures, older adults are increasing faster as a population segment than any other age group. At the end of the 19th century, that population was 1% of the world population. By the end of the 20th century, it was closing in on 7% - a remarkable change in 100 years. In the United States, 30 million people are over the age of 65. By mid-century, that number will increase to nearly 70 million. As shown in this graphic, 13% of the population of the United States is over the age of 65. Other industrial nations have similar proportions of older adults... even agrarian societies are experiencing increases in the population over 65.
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