An Ageing Population

The amount of elderly people in the UK is increasing at alarming rates. In 1995 there were above 9 million elderly people aged 65 and by 2030 this is expected to increase to 13 million.
Furthermore, the fertility rate is decreasing due to women having children later because of their busy working lives.
There are fewer younger people to support the increasing elderly population.

In East Devon almost 50% of the population is over 50 years of age. This is 15% more the national average and is expected to rise to a 17% difference by 2029.
Communities are in need for more elderly facilities as their population increases. The Abundant Life Project in Dartington is taking on the ageing population by setting up a community for over 55's.

Child deaths and vaccinations

Millions of children are dying every year from diseases. Rotavirus is a disease that causes diarrhoea, diarrheal and the death of over 500,000 children under the age of 5 every year.

Logically, the more people there are in a country, the harder it is to provide resources for people and to educate people. It is also difficult to sustain the environment. Many countries have a continuous growth in population. Families often have many children to ensure they have at least one surviving child. This means families have more people to provide for and causes resources to become scarce.

If the number of deaths of children were to decrease, it would be thought that the population would increase even more. However if there is a greater amount of children surviving their parents would need less children to ensure they have a surviving child. Therefore reducing the amount of children dying will cause the country's population growth to decrease. Consequently, this will mean there is a greater amount of resources to be shared within the population. Decreasing the amount of deaths of children in a country can be done by providing vaccinations for the worst off areas. With little costs for vaccines this can be easily done.