Continuous Growth of an Ageing Population in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, persons aged 65 and over have generally been taken as the target population in planning services for older persons despite the fact that selected services for older persons are also provided for persons aged 60-64. The 2001 Population Census provides a detailed analysis on the older persons. The number of older persons increased by 659,134 or at an average annual growth rate of 5.5% over the past 40 years from 1961 to 2001. The average growth rate of older persons was much faster than the 1.9% of the whole population. During 1961 to 1981, the number of older persons rose from 87,918 to 326,809, and reached 747,052 in 2001.