SHAPING THE FUTURE HOW CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS CAN POWER HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
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FIGURE 5.6:<br />
Most people will continue to live in cities with<br />
less than 5 million residents<br />
TABLE 5.1:<br />
Cities attract young and working-age people,<br />
making them key to the demographic dividend<br />
Based on UN DESA 2014a.<br />
Based on UN DESA 2014a.<br />
YOUTHFUL CITIES<br />
FIGURE 5.7:<br />
More developed countries have higher shares<br />
of older rural residents<br />
158<br />
Cities are home to greater shares of youth and<br />
adult working-age people than rural areas, 10<br />
making them pivotal places to capture demographic<br />
dividends. In 2015, youth and adult<br />
working-age populations accounted for 67 percent<br />
to 70 percent of city populations in East Asia,<br />
South Asia and South-east Asia, compared to 60<br />
percent to 62 percent of rural ones. Rural areas<br />
are home to increasing shares of older people,<br />
with shares increasing at a faster rate between<br />
1980 and 2015 than in urban areas (Table 5.1).<br />
Cities attract youth and young workers from<br />
rural areas in part because of the diversity they<br />
offer in terms of education, jobs and economic<br />
opportunities.<br />
While most rural areas now have more<br />
people who are either children or elderly, the<br />
split between young and old differs by stage of<br />
development (Box 5.1 and Figure 5.7). In more<br />
developed countries, the share of older residents<br />
in rural areas is higher than that of low- and<br />
medium-income countries. 11 In Japan, the share<br />
of people above 60 in rural areas went up from<br />
25 percent to 35 percent in just 15 years, from<br />
Notes: Data are taken from household survey data included in<br />
the United Nations Demographic Yearbook 2013. All surveys<br />
are from 2009 to 2013 except Lao People’s Democratic<br />
Republic (2005).<br />
Source: Based on UN DESA 2014a.