Demographic Change and Ageing of Population in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Like many developed countries in the world, Sri Lanka has successfully attempted to decrease both the birth rate and death rate. With the decrease of fertility rate, the annual birth rate was gradually reduced. The mortality rate dropped resulting in the increase of the life expectancy of people year by year. The ageing of the population refers most commonly to an increase in the proportion of the elderly in the population. It is primarily a result of declines in fertility and mortality. I.e. population ageing is the inevitable result of rising life expectancy and declining fertility. Thus the main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of these demographic changes on indicators in the ageing of population in Sri Lanka. The study was mainly based on secondary data and for the data analysis, descriptive statistical techniques were adopted. The study reveals that, these demographic changes have mainly influenced on three indicators in the ageing of population. They are the proportion of elderly, the index of ageing and the elderly dependency ratio. These indicators from 1946 and beyond are expected to rise rapidly. Also, the prominent feature revealed by the study is, the index of ageing rises speedily above the other indices. The index of ageing were only 14 elderly persons for every 100 children in 1963, but in 1991 it had increased to 26, and it is projected to be as high as 127 in the year 2031. These trends obviously indicate a change of the population pyramid of Sri Lanka in the future.