Report: 5% of population in Palestine aged 60 and over

Five per cent of the Palestinian society is 60 years of age or older, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) revealed yesterday while marking the International Day of Older Persons.

Wafa reported the PCBS saying: “Palestinian society is considered a young society where the percentage of young people is high and the percentage of the elderly is relatively low.”

“In mid-2019, the number of the elderly aged 60 years and above reached 257,151 persons, five per cent of the population, 169,503 persons in the West Bank and 87,648 persons in the Gaza Strip.”

The PCBS expected that the percentage of the elderly will start increasing after the middle of the next decade.

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Palestine, it explained, is witnessing a noticeable improvement in life expectancy since the beginning of the 1990s, with life expectancy increasing about six to eight years over the last two decades.

“In particular, life expectancy increased for both males and females from 67 years in 1992 to 72.9 years for males and 75.2 years for females in middle of 2019,” the report said.

Thirteen per cent of elderly citizens work, statistics showed, made up of 16 per cent in the occupied West Bank and seven per cent in the besieged Gaza Strip.

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