TEHRAN – In case the share of the elderly of the country’s population rises to 30 percent, the health sector will face serious challenges, an MP has said.

“The fertility and child-bearing rate in the country is not favorable,” Mehr quoted Mohammad Pakmehr as saying. “Despite the fact that the law on supporting families and increasing population and child-bearing has been approved, unfortunately the results do not meet expectations.”

At present, people with 65 years of age constitute about 11 percent of the country’s population. Based on demographic categories, countries in which the share of people with 65 years of age is less than seven percent are considered young.

Those countries with the elderly population of 7-14 percent are considered middle-aged, and those with the elderly population of more than 21 percent are considered old, he explained.

Data shows that the share of the elderly’s population in the country could reach up to 27-28 percent over the next 30 years and this is an alarm bell for the country’s future, Pakmehr stressed.

Statistics indicate that the fertility rate in Iran is stabilized at around 1.6 children per woman, which is much lower than the rate required to replace its aging population, the transition of society from young to middle-aged has become inevitable.

According to the first five-year national development plan (1989-1993), the policies focused on lowering the total fertility rate from 6.4 children in the Iranian year 1365 (1986) to 4 children in 1390 (2011) and reducing the population growth rate from 3.2 to 2.3 percent in the same period, IRNA quoted Mohammad-Javad Mahmoudi, an official with the National Institute for Population Research, as saying.

However, the taken measures, back then, led to a wide transformation and change in population indicators and a noticeable decrease in population growth and fertility rate far beyond the set goals of the first development plan in the country, the official noted.

The results of the census in 2011 and 2016 showed that the trend of the country’s demographic changes had a significant deviation from the goals of the first five-year development plan, the official noted.

The population growth in 2011 and 2016 was announced to be 1.29 and 1.24, respectively. The figure reached 0.7 in the past Iranian year (March 2023 –March 2024).

According to the latest census, the number of aged citizens in the country is growing by 3.62 percent which is five times faster than the total population growth rate, which is 1.24 percent.

In Iranian year 1385 (2006-2007), there were 5,121,043 men and women aged above 60. In 2015, 10 percent of the country’s population was older than 60, ISNA quoted Mohammad-Javad Mahmoudi, an official with the National Institute for Population Research.

In the next 30 years, the population aged 60 years or older is projected to hold a 32 percent share of the whole population, that is, the elderly will account for one-third of Iran’s population by 2050, the official noted.

Currently, men and women aged above 60 constitute some 11.5 percent of Iran’s population, an official with the health ministry has said.