QCOSTARICA – Costa Rica is the fifth country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with the highest population aging and the average age in 2050 would be 45 years.
According to the latest report from this international organization, on average in OECD countries, the median age was 41 years in 2020, eight years more than in 1990 and is expected to increase by six more years by 2050.
Read more: Being old in Costa Rica
Fernando RodrÃguez, an economist from the Universidad Nacional (UNA), affirms that this phenomenon is not recent in the country.
This rapid increase is due to people living longer on average and having fewer babies, explains RodrÃguez
According to the OECD, all the populations of the member countries have been aging.
Population ageing is a shift in the distribution of a country’s population towards older ages and is usually reflected in an increase in the population’s mean and median ages, a decline in the proportion of the population composed of children, and a rise in the proportion of the population composed of elderly.
In Latin America, Colombia would be the second-fastest aging rate among members of the OECD, projecting the median age in Colombia to increase by 12.6 years in 2050, to an average of 43.9 years.
The countries also with an increase of more than 10 years will also be Chile and Mexico.
In May 2021, Costa Rica formally became the 38th OECD member country in the Organization’s 60-year history.
On 14 December 1960, 20 countries originally signed the Convention on the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Since then, 18 countries have become members of the Organization.
Here is a list of the current OECD Member countries.