Statute of the Elderly completes 15 years
October 01, 2018 03h55 PM | Last Updated: October 02, 2018 11h11 AM
Celebrated on October 1st, the International Day of Older Persons marks 15 years of the enactment of the Statute of the Elderly. According to the IBGE, the Brazilian population remained aging over the last years and gained 4.8 million seniors since 2012, surpassing the milestone of 30.2 million in 2017, according to the Continuous National Household Sample Survey - Characteristics of Residents and Housing Units.
In 2012, the population aged 60 years and over added up to 25.4 million. The 4.8 million new seniors in five years corresponds to a growth of 18% of this age group, which has been increasingly representative in Brazil. Adding up to 16.9 million (56% of the seniors), women are the significant majority of this group, whereas men are 13.3 million (44% of the group).
"Not only in Brazil, but the whole world has been facing the aging trend of the population over the last years. It was the result both of the increase in life expectancy due to the improvement in health conditions and of the fertility rate, as the average number of children per woman has been falling. This is a world phenomenon, not only a Brazilian one. It took a bit more to happen here than in the rest of the world", explains Maria Lúcia Vieira, manager of the Continuous PNAD.
Between 2012 and 2017, the amount of seniors grew in every Federation Unit. Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul are the states with the highest proportion of seniors, both of them with 18.6% of their population within the group of 60 years and over. Adding up to 7.2% of the population, Amapá is the state with the lowest percentage of seniors.
