The number of Guyanese over 40 years of age has increased from 2002 to 2012 and now comprise 29.1 percent of the population or 217,498 persons, according to the last census done in 2012.
After a lengthy delay, some of the results of the census have been released and it reveals that there is a higher number of people over 40 years of age, increasing from 176,445 in 2002 to 217,498 persons in 2012. In contrast, the population below 40 years dropped from 574,779 people or 76.5 percent in 2002 to 529,457 people or 70.9 percent in 2012, reflecting a decrease of 7.9 percent.
The numbers are contained in two Compendiums released recently by the Bureau of Statistics which further detail the findings of the four-year-old census, including the ethnic composition of the population. In 2014, the Bureau had released preliminary results that showed a drop of Guyana’s population from 751,223 in 2002 to 746,955 in 2012, which Chief Statistician and Census Officer Lennox Benjamin suggested was mainly influenced by migration.
The report said that the decline in the population was as a consequence of the drop in the number of dependent children under 15 years old and young working adults in the age groups 15-39 years.
Young children under 10 years, who were births that occurred from 2003 to 2012, suffered the greater portion of the decline. The report noted that there has been a continued decline in registered live births over the ten-year period following the 2002 Census.
Further, according to the data released, there has been a decline of young adults in the prime working years of 20-39 years. “The shrinking of these age cohorts which are reflective of reduction in their numbers cannot be as a result of high mortality rates in those productive age groups, but rather and more likely as a result of continuous outward migration of those young people,” the report says.
However, it noted that the population in age group 10-19 years comparatively increased over the number recorded in 2002 whereas like the two youngest age groups, the 20-39 age groups also recorded a comparative decrease in the number with 2002.
The report said that the changing age structure has policy implications. “For instance, the fact that the numbers of persons in the highest age groups are steadily increasing as a proportion of the total population, while simultaneously the proportion of the youngest age groups continue to decline, means that social resources may have to be eventually re-allocated between these age groups.
It may impact for instance, on the demand for school places as well as increases in the provisions for health, pension and national insurance for the elderly,” the report says.
