World’s Oldest Populations: Changes Over 15 Years [INFOGRAPHIC]

As global life expectancy increases, the number of living senior citizens is also growing. Bloomberg has shown which nations have shifted the most by charting the change between 1996 and 2011 in their share of population that is over 65 years of age, which is one way to measure the World’s Oldest Populations.

Japan is the oldest nation, where 23.1% of its population is older than 65. Germany and Italy are not far behind and many other European countries rank high on this list. The U.S. is further down near the middle of the pack at 13.5%. The nations with the lowest percentage of living elderly has less to do with demographic shifts and is more related to those nations having generally much lower life expectancies.

World’s Oldest Populations