January 10, 2020
Iran’s low birth rate means the country is slowly shifting from one heavily dominated by young people to a more normal age distribution with a much greater proportion of the elderly.
In fact, Iranians will constitute the most elderly population in the region within 20 years, according to Mohsen Fatih, vice-president of the Center of Studies at the Faculty of Medicine of Tehran University.
And sociologist Shahla Kazempour says the proportion of elderly people will rise to 30 per cent in the next 20 to 30 years, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reports.
Speaking at a seminar in Turkey, Kazempour said that at the time of the revolution people under 15 years of age constituted 46 percent of Iran’s population, while those over 60 made up 3 percent.
She said the percentage of those under 15 has now been halved to 23 per cent, while the percentage of the elderly has tripled to 9 per cent.