<B>By Nicholas RAINER</B>

Don?t you have the creeping feeling that there are more and more people everywhere you go? It seems that one has to queue for every little thing. Are there really more of us or is it just an illusion created by the frantic nature of modern life? When such questions arise, one could do far worse than to click on the Central Statistics Office?s (CSO) website. By doing so, one enters a world of useful information and its Digest of demographic statistics 2006 is particularly revealing.

Apart from being the title of a magnificent film by Wong Kar-wai, 2046 is also the date chosen by the CSO for its most ambitious population projection yet. According to the State statistician, the population will grow to a little over 1 452 000 in 2046, an increase of 200 000 from 2006. If this figure seems anodyne enough, the same cannot be said for the projected age of the resident population 38 years from now.

In 2006, Mauritian residents over the age of 65 accounted for only 6.6% of the population. By 2046, however, almost one Mauritian in five will be over age of 65. The ramifications of this ?graying? of the population in terms of pensions and health care boggle the mind. Doubtless, policy makers are wrangling with these issues at this very moment. This huge increase will be most keenly felt by the 15-64 age group, which will represent 63.4% of the population, down from 69.4% in 2006. Finally, the average age of the population will increase to 41, up from 32.5 in 2006.

The CSO rightly underlines the importance of population forecasts. ?Until recently, projections published by this office have not gone beyond a range of 20 years. However, there is now more and more interest in long term perspective studies, and in particular the long term implications of ageing in respect to health and pensions issues?. It is quick to add a caveat to the accuracy of its projections though. ?It has therefore been decided to carry forward the projections over a period of 40 years and to publish the results although their reliability is expected to diminish over the long range.? If it?s true that compiling such a far-reaching forecast can indeed be a hazardous exercise, the general trend that emerges from it can under no circumstances be discounted.

If anything, this forecast confirms the fact that Mauritius is increasingly resembling a developed rather than a developing country. Earlier this week, a survey on demographic trends compiled by the European Commission?s statistical service revealed just how grave the problem of negative population growth really is. ?The impact of population shrinkage, coupled with the ageing of key European societies, spells big problems for pensions, health and welfare systems across much of the union?.

At first glance, this might seem encouraging. Give or take a million additional tourists, the population will remain more or less stable for the foreseeable future. Dig a bit deeper, though, and the picture is a lot more nuanced. The government has taken some steps to address the ageing of the population, namely by incrementally increasing the retirement age to 65 by 2018, it is clear that the issue is going to create some very interesting economic and social challenges. One other thing is for certain: the queues won?t be getting any shorter.