By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The number of people 60 years of age and older may nearly triple to 2 billion by 2050, accounting for nearly a quarter of the expected 9.2 billion global population, a U.N. report warned on Tuesday.
The 2006 revision of "World Population Prospects" by the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division predicts the global population will swell by 2.5 billion from the current 6.7 billion during the next 43 years.
"While the population at the global level is on track to surpass 9 billion by 2050 and hence continues to increase, that of the more developed regions is hardly changing and will age very markedly," the report predicted.
"Virtually all population growth is occurring in the less developed regions and especially in the group of 50 least developed countries, many of which still have relatively youthful populations which are expected to age only moderately over the foreseeable future," it said. "Among the rest of the developing countries, rapid population aging is forecast."
A combination of people living longer and having fewer children would nearly double the number of people over 60 years of age from the current 245 million to 406 million in 2050.
The report said the prevailing trend of people not having enough babies to replace people dying would continue in the developed countries, while fertility in the least developed nations would decline but still remain higher than the rest of the world.