The number of people aged 60 and older globally is projected to reach 1.4 billion by 2030 and exceed 2 billion by 2050, according to data cited in a United Press International commentary published Wednesday. In Latin America and the Caribbean, older people are expected to represent one-quarter of the region’s population by mid-century.
The commentary, written by Carlos Cantero, a Chilean academic at the International University of La Rioja in Spain, argued that this demographic shift requires more than expanded medical services or pension reform. “It requires societies to reconsider how they understand human dignity,” Cantero wrote.
Old age, he said, presents a “troubling contradiction” as people live longer but their accumulated experience may be valued less. He cited the World Health Organization’s definition of ageism as stereotypes and discrimination directed at people because of their age, which he said can harm physical and mental health and reinforce the false idea that aging necessarily means dependence.
“Older people are not a uniform group,” Cantero wrote. “Some remain professionally active and socially engaged, while others require varying levels of support. Their value does not depend on productivity or physical independence.”
Cantero highlighted an April 2025 decision by the U.N. Human Rights Council to create an intergovernmental working group to draft an international legally binding instrument on the rights of older people. The decision, he wrote, “reflected growing concern that existing protections do not adequately address the vulnerabilities associated with aging.”
The commentary also addressed digital exclusion, which Cantero described as a new form of structural exclusion. He noted that banking and government services increasingly require digital access, and that older people who cannot navigate mobile applications may struggle to manage finances or obtain essential services. When public services eliminate face-to-face options, he wrote, “rights that exist in law become difficult to exercise in practice.”
Cantero described the phenomenon as “digital ageism,” writing that older people “are expected to adapt to systems rarely designed with their needs in mind.” He called the resulting pattern a “programmed obsolescence of human experience” in which decades of wisdom count for less than the ability to process whatever is new.
He argued for preserving telephone and face-to-face alternatives to digital platforms, and for urban design that allows older people to maintain independence. “These measures should not be understood merely as assistance for a vulnerable population,” Cantero wrote. “They are investments in social cohesion.”
Intergenerational solidarity, he said, benefits all parties. “Older people carry memories and historical knowledge that cannot be reproduced by an algorithm. Younger generations contribute new skills and perspectives.”
Cantero concluded by arguing that societies’ treatment of older people reveals their values. “If dignity depends on productivity or the ability to keep pace with technological change, millions of people will be pushed to the margins. If dignity is understood as inherent, aging becomes not a decline in human value but another stage of human development.”
Cantero is the author of “Digital Society: Reason and Emotion” and focuses his academic work on adaptability in the digital society, ethics, social innovation, and human development. The views expressed in the commentary were his own, according to UPI.