Armenia is among the countries with rapidly aging population, coordinator of demographic programs at UN Population Fund Armenia (UNPFA) Anna Hovhannisyan told a press conference.
She said according to the UN scale, if a country's share of the elderly population exceeds 7%, that country is considered aging. In Armenia, that proportion is about 14%, which means that Armenia is among the aging countries," she said.
Hovhannisyan noted that such a phenomenon is inherent in all those countries where the total fertility index is low and tends to decrease. "According to UN Population Fund projections, by 2050, the proportion of the elderly population will reach 22-24%. This means that one in four or five in Armenia will be a pensioner," she said.
According to official statistics, Armenia's birth rate in January-February 2022 dropped by 3.4% compared to the same period in 2021. During the same period, 6,030 people died in the country, up 11% from January-February 2021 and 18.5% from the two months of 2020. Thus, the natural increase in the population decreased 6.7-fold compared to the first 2 months of 2021 and 3.3-fold compared to the first 2 months of 2020.
According to UNPFA projections, the decrease in the annual growth rate of Armenia is expected to continue in the coming years, beginning to see a decrease in numbers as soon as the year 2024.
