THE MIRROR: Britain's population getting bigger and older - with 1 in 4 of us aged over 65 within 20 years

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Comment: Debora Price – Professor of Social Gerontology

The fact that populations in countries all over the world are ageing is not just down to people living longer on average.

It’s also because youngsters’ mortality improves, because more women survive childbirth and because the treatment and eradication of infectious diseases is far better.

However, in many countries, including the UK, fewer children are being born – which means the population is not replacing itself and on average gets older. So we end up with a host of challenges.

These are partly about changes in population structure and in the types of diseases that afflict and kill people. But there are also major changes in how families form and break up, in migration, in globalisation and in climate change.

All this means it’s hard to imagine a part of modern life not affected by population ageing.

So we need to think of how we deliver health, social care, housing, pensions, jobs and a decent income in this new world for populations that might live a very long time.

There are fantastic global opportunities here for design, technology, town planning and the provision of housing. Those involved should think creatively about innovative new solutions to the issues that confront us all as we age.

Most important of all is to realise that ageing is a very unequal business – that people with resources are able to grow older much better than those without. This unequal ageing is perhaps our greatest challenge.