According to recent UN reports, 1 out of 10 persons is now aged 60 or over; by 2050, that ratio will be 1 out of 5, with older persons outnumbering children under the age of 14. As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, the number of persons aged 60 and over is growing so rapidly that a 30 per cent increase is expected, reaching one billion by the end of this decade, and perhaps another billion by the middle of the century.