International Day of Older Persons

According to the latest Global Health Estimates , life expectancy reached 73.3 years in 2023, just shy of the 73.4 years recorded in 2019. “Living longer is one of the great achievements of public health,” said Dr. Alain Labrique, Director of WHO ’s Department of Data, Digital Health, Analytics and AI. The estimates, which cover trends in death and disability worldwide by region and by country from 2000 to 2023, draw on various sources including national vital registration data and estimates from WHO technical programmes alongside UN partner organizations. Healthy life expectancy – the years people live in good health – has recovered more slowly, reaching 62.8 years in 2023, still 0.4 years below its 2019 level. “The next challenge is to ensure that those additional years are lived in good health, while health systems are equipped to respond to the changing needs of populations,” Dr. Labrique said. Milestone for low-income countries The estimates also point to a long-term shift in wha...

  Population ageing is no longer a distant projection; it is an unfolding global reality. The global population aged 60 or over is projected to rise from approximately 1.22 billion in 2025 to more than 2.1 billion by 2050, a transformation that is without historical precedent, most pronounced in developing regions. Growth is fastest at the oldest ages: populations aged 80 or over are expected to more than double, and the number of centenarians to increase more than fourfold by mid-century. In 2025, remaining life expectancy at age 60 varies substantially across regions, from 17.4 years in Africa to 24.9 years in Oceania, reflecting deep inequalities in access to health, social protection and economic opportunity. Despite significant overall gains, healthy life expectancy has not kept pace with longevity in many settings. Low-income regions have achieved substantial gains in healthy life expectancy, while highincome countries have seen a marked slowdown in improvement after 201...

  While life expectancy has increased substantially, improvements in healthspan, the years of life lived in good health, have not always kept pace. Extending healthspan, not just lifespan, is increasingly recognized as the defining objective of health policy in an ageing world. Social determinants account for 80 to 90 per cent of health outcomes5 , and evidence from communities around the world where people live measurably longer and healthier lives consistently points to the power of place, purpose and social connection. Advances in geroscience and artificial intelligence are creating new opportunities to extend life expectancy further , yet without equitable access and sustained investment in prevention, these gains risk widening existing disparities. Longer lives also have profound implications for economic security and social protection. Globally, 3.8 billion people remain without any social protection coverage, and more than 57.8 per cent of the world's workers are in informal...

  The 2026 United Nations International Day of Older Persons (UNIDOP) will explore one of the defining transformations of our time: humanity is living longer than ever before. Global life expectancy has increased steadily over more than seven decades and is projected to continue rising through mid-century. Yet in 2019, the gap between global life expectancy and healthy life expectancy stood at 9.6 years, a gap that has widened since 2000, reflecting the growing burden of noncommunicable diseases.  Longer lives are bringing greater attention to how health, social and economic conditions, and human rights are experienced across the life course. Longevity intersects with health systems, labour markets, social protection frameworks, education systems, housing and infrastructure planning, and fiscal sustainability in ways that are deeply interconnected and cannot be addressed in isolation. Where years of life are lived in good health and supported by inclusive labour markets an...