Ageing population creates economic problems, Vatican envoy reminds UN

(Fri.13 April,2007):- The Vatican's envoy to the United Nations has warned that demographic trends, point to an emerging problem for economic development, as workers will be required to support an aging population. Speaking to an April 10 session on “Population and development,” Archbishop Celestino Migliore said that the economic problems created by declining birth rates, should be addressed by efforts to provide education and support for young workers, increasing their productivity. As the world's population ages, the archbishop said, "an increasing number of elderly people will lay a heavier burden on the active population." He said “In the long run, that problem must be addressed by programs that foster respect for human life in all its stages." Archbishop Migliore observed that in Africa, the aging of the population is not as acute. This fact, he said , will give that continent an unprecedented advantage in economic terms, as a young and numerous workforce would be available to it until at least 2050, while the demographic dividend in most other regions will have run out." The time is ripe, therefore, for prudent investments in Africa's economic development, he said. The best method of helping Africa escape poverty, the Vatican envoy continued, is through investment in education. "Investing in people in this way," he said, "especially in education, is surely to be preferred to legal imposition of limits, to artificial corrective measures and drastic policies, and to the unacceptable practice of eliminating fetuses, especially females, in order to limit population growth."