Sonia Vásquez Ferreras, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) representative, said that life expectancy in the Dominican Republic has increased by 16 years over the past 50 years. She says this means more attention needs to start to be given to the senior segment of the population. At present, most of the Dominican population is in the 15 to 65 year age bracket, the most productive.
“The big issue behind all this is that one has to live with quality those years, it’s not enough to live longer.” she said.
Vasquez explains that today a 65-year-old is a person of productive age, who is more active and has very different service demands that must be met.
She said, nevertheless, that for the aging population to have a decent old age and a pension, these persons need to contribute to the social security system.
She shared the statistics that show there is a population of around 11 million people living in the Dominican Republic, of which 7% are older than 65 years, 64% are 15 to 64 year and 29% are 0 to 14 years. The population growth is at 1.2% per year.
Furthermore, the country is significantly affected in its productivity by the percentage of teenage girls giving birth that is alarmingly high.
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16 July 2019