Part One

arrangements of older persons and possible government responses. Population ageing is expected to have a major impact on life in the twenty-first century. Concerned by the looming pension crisis, many Governments are promoting more self-reliance in income security for older persons and greater family responsibility for providing care. Consequently, patterns of caregiving and co-residence are emerging as pre-eminent issues related to the well-being of older persons. two most important objectives of the Meeting were, namely, to address key issues related to the ageing process and how Governments were responding to them, and to improve our knowledge of patterns, determinants and consequences of living arrangements among older persons. Mr. Chamie observed that persons aged 60 years or older comprised 10 per cent of the world's 6 billion inhabitants. These older persons will increase to about 2 billion or 22 per cent of the population by 2050, a percentage already attained in the five " oldest " countries: The present report includes brief summaries of the papers presented in each of the meeting's sessions, along with comments by the discussant, a consolidated summary of the main points arising in the general discussions, and conclusions. The agenda, list of participants and list of documents are included in the annexes. For the opening session, members of United Nations missions, representatives of non-governmental organizations and members of the press were invited to attend. The forum was designed to create a background against which to cast the main theme of the meeting, namely, the living arrangements of older persons. Each of four experts was asked to consider what were the critical issues and policy responses to population ageing. Barbara Crossette, moderator of the forum, acknowledged the important function played by the Population Division of the United Nations as a channel to disseminate information and as a useful source of interpretation of a number of statistics. She thanked the staff of the Population Division for also performing that role with regard to ageing and older persons' living arrangements. 2 Peter Peterson began by stating that ageing is not far away into the future, but is occurring now. It is also not just a local phenomenon but one that will take place in many societies around the world. Ageing will have a global impact, which he described as the " Floridization of the world ". He called attention to the burden that ageing places on working age people, …