HYPERION ECONOMIC JOURNAL

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• Mariana Bălan, Affiliation: Institute for Economic Forecasting, Romanian Academy, Bucharest, Romania.

The world population in general is faced with a slow but continuous process of demographic ageing. Under these conditions, an increase is recorded in the ‘pressure’ exercised by the elderly on the adult and potentially active population, implicitly on some important systems of the society (health, social assistance, social insurances budget), with implications on the economic and social policy. The change in the age structure of the population as result of the particularities of demographic evolution, of Romania’s population ageing and of population increase in Egypt has economic, social and many other outcomes, both at national and regional level. These consequences, as a rule, have a long term character, reaching higher shares or diminishing from one stage to another of the demographic evolution, depending on the type of age structure. The consequences of the changes in the age structure of the population display a wide range, including all age groups and leaving their fingerprint on the multiple social processes. The changes in the age structure of the population imply change in the general structure of social needs. The increase in the weight of elderly or of young individuals in the population structure triggers the need of increasing the number of health and social care institutions, including here the training of specialized personnel. Important changes related to the change in the population structure take place also in other spheres of human life: personal, family and professional life, in economy, politics and culture, etc. The paper presents a brief analysis of the determinant factors of population ageing in Romania and of the demographic changes in Egypt, as well as the economic and social consequences of this phenomenon’s expansion in the two countries.

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