The Morning Briefing: An ageing population

"The Morning Briefing" is SmartPlanet's daily roundup of must-reads from the web. This morning we're reading about ageing populations.

1.) An ageing population may be what the world needs. Americans just don’t make babies like they used to. The U.S. birthrate is the lowest in nearly a century, according to a study released last year by the Pew Research Center.

2.) Design for an ageing population. A new multidisciplinary field has emerged in several universities in which sociologists, psychologists and urban planners work to tailor architectural designs to seniors as that demographic continues to grow.

3.) Three reasons to be fearful about a cap on social care costs. The government has at last published its plans for care funding more than 18 months after the Dilnot commission's report. As widely reported, these plans include a cap on care costs of £75k, with the means-test threshold raised to £123k.

4.) China's ageing population: 100-year waiting list for Beijing nursing home. Methuselah himself might have struggled to win a place at one of Beijing's most popular old people's homes: the waiting list is currently 100 years long.

5.) Does an ageing population hurt the economy? The economic benefit of immigration is in part about how big of a problem our aging population is.

Photo credit: Denish C

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com