Rate : Percentage Aged over 65

Rates are used to define comparative statistics that can be mapped and graphed. For example, our occupational information includes counts of the number of workers in employment and out of employment, as well as the total number of workers. We then define a measure called the 'Unemployment Rate', which uses the number out of work rather than the number in work, and expresses it as a percentage of the total, rather than a rate per thousand. The descriptive text in the system is defined mainly for rates.

Identifier:
R_AGE_65_up
Name:
Percentage Aged over 65
Type:
Rate (R)
Definition:
AGE_GROUP:65_up * 100.0 / TOT_POP:now
Display as:
Continuous time series
Text:
The proportion of the population aged over 65 was close to 5% in all censuses from 1851 to 1911, but it then tripled during the 20th century. In the nineteenth century, the elderly can be seen as a residual, concentrated into areas of low mortality and high out migration -- in other words, mainly in rural areas. In 1851, this meant mainly the rural periphery: the south west, Norfolk and Suffolk, and most of Wales. The highlands of Scotland, conversely, contained relatively few elderly people due to poor life expectancy while the fenlands were an area of recent in-migration following drainage. Other peripheral areas with low proportions of the elderly, in Cornwall and west Cumberland, were growing because of the mining industry.

By 1911, or even 1931, the pattern in the south was little different, the main change being that the fenlands had aged rapidly once in-migration ceased. In the north, the old industrial cores were still lacking in elderly but their surrounding districts were also now relatively youthful.

By 1951, we begin to see a new pattern as the elderly ceased to be a group left behind as young people moved away. Instead, as people began to expect a lengthy retirement in which some could live where they pleased, the elderly themselves became migrants, moving to rural areas and especially to seaside areas. By the early 21st century, the country was almost ringed by a necklace of districts with over 20% aged over 65.

Rate " Percentage Aged over 65 " is contained within:


Themes, which organise the database into broad topics:

Entity ID Entity Name
T_POP Population



Rate " Percentage Aged over 65 " contains no lower-level entities.