A world of old people who, however, at least in Italy, risk not living that long. This is what emerges from the reading of two data recently published, according to which, first of all, between 2016 and 2017 - according to the calculations of the World population prospects of the United Nations - the over 65s will be more than the very young between 0 and 4 years, up to 2100 when there will be 650 million children, over 2,5 billion elderly people. All while in Italy, according to the Osservasalute report, for the first time in the history of the unified country, the life expectancy of citizens is decreasing.
Life expectancy in 2015 for men it was 80,1 years and 84,7 years for women, explains Walter Ricciardi, director of the Regional Health Observatory, while in 2014 life expectancy at birth was higher and equal to 80,3 years for men and 85,0 years for women. The trend involved all regions and is due to the reduction in health prevention rather than the economic crisis.
In the autonomous province of Trento both men and women have the greatest longevity (respectively, 81,3 years and 86,1 years). There Campania, on the other hand, is the region where life expectancy at birth is lowest, 78,5 years for men and 83,3 years for women. As far as the causes of death are concerned, according to the 2012 data, the most frequent are the ischemic heart disease, alone responsible for 75.098 deaths (just over 12% of the total deaths). These are followed by cerebrovascular diseases (61.255 deaths, equal to almost 10% of the total) and other heart diseases not of ischemic origin (48.384 deaths, equal to about 8% of the total).
“The decline is generalized for all regions – explained Ricciardi -. Normally one year every four years, it is a warning sign, although we'll have to wait until next year to see if that's a trend. We are the rear in prevention in the world, and this has a weight ”. Public health expenditure went from 112,5 billion euros in 2010 to 110,5 in 2014, we read, and the contraction coincided with a slow but steady reduction in regional deficits, achieved however largely through the blockade or reduction of healthcare personnel and the containment of consumption, measures which, experts underline, will hardly be able to work again in the future.
These data must then be read in the global context of a world increasingly for old people, and with fewer and fewer (great-grandchildren). In addition to the over 65s, the number of individuals they will have will increase - and by a lot a three-digit age. “They will go from 451 (in 2015) to 3.676.000 in 2050”, estimates a recent dossier by the Pew Research Center, a US think tank. Which also explains how half of it will be concentrated in only five countries: China, Japan, the United States, Italy and India. In 1990, just to make a comparison, there were 95. Statistically speaking, in thirty-four years one for every 480 inhabitants will meet. And, perhaps, the century of life will no longer be news.
The United States today is the country with the highest number of centenarians: 72. Followed by Japan (61), China (48) and India (27). Italy, on the fifth step, has 25 thousand. Which in thirty-four years will become 216 thousand. Almost nine times more. A progression that in 2050 will allow us - and the performance is positive or negative, depending on the point of view - to overtake India in the ranking. While on the podium China (with its 620 citizens born in 1950 at the latest) will overtake both Japan (441) and the United States (378). Every ten thousand people in 2015 blew out one hundred candles in 7,4. In 2050, barring demographic shocks, they will become 23,6 with the records of the Japanese (41,4) and Italians (38,3).
