Population aged 85 and over growing by 1,000 every year
The number of people aged 85 and over has grown by around 1,000 people each year in the last decade.
This is one of the findings of the ‘estimates of the population aged 85 and over’ published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA).
Over the last decade, the population aged 85 and over increased by 41.3%. This growth is six times faster than that of the population aged under 85 during the same period (6.9%). In mid-2014, 1.9% of the Northern Ireland population was aged 85 and over.
Women accounted for 67.9% of the population aged 85 and over in mid-2014. However, the population increase in males aged 85 and over (60.9%) between mid-2004 and mid-2014 was noticeably higher than that among females (33.6%).
It is also estimated that there were 249 centenarians (those aged 100 and over) in Northern Ireland on 30 June 2014. Only one in seven centenarians (14.5%) was male.
Across Northern Ireland, the proportion of people aged 85 and over in mid-2014 ranged from 1.4% (2,000 people) in Derry & Strabane to 2.4% (3,800 people) in North Down & Ards Local Government District.
Of the four UK countries, Northern Ireland had the lowest proportion of people aged 85 and over (1.9%) in mid-2014. However at 41.3 per cent, Northern Ireland has experienced the highest level of growth in this population between mid-2004 and mid-2014.
Growth in the population aged 85 and over is the result of more people ‘ageing into’ the age group of 85 and over than are leaving it each year as a result of dying. At these ages, the impact of migration is negligible.
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