No. 5 - The international perspective

While the Canadian population has aged rapidly in the past several decades, the senior population in Canada is still relatively small compared with other major industrialized countries. In the late 1990s, for example, 12% of all Canadians were aged 65 and over, compared with 13% in the Netherlands; 14% in the United States; 15% in France, Japan, and Switzerland; 16% in the United Kingdom and Germany; and 17% in Sweden and Italy.

This situation will change in the next several decades, however, because the number of Canadians nearing the age of 65 is larger than in these other countries.

Indeed, while seniors currently make up a smaller share of the Canadian population than in the United States, seniors are projected to make up 25% of the Canadian population by 2051, compared with only 20% of Americans.

Seniors as a percentage of the population in Canada and other selected countries, most recent years

Source: Statistics Canada