Top healthcare stocks hold lots of appeal

Article Excerpt

The Covid-19 pandemic has once again demonstrated the importance of healthcare services. But meantime, the demand for healthcare products and services has been growing for decades. The aging of the population A combination of declining fertility rates and increasing life expectancy is resulting in a rapidly aging global population, mainly in the developed world but also increasingly in the developing world. According to the latest UN World Population Prospects report, by 2050, 16% of the world’s population will be over age 65, up from 9% in 2019. Also, one in four persons living in Europe and Northern America could be aged 65 or over, and the number of persons over 80 years is projected to triple, from 143 million in 2019 to 426 million in 2050. Growing demand in the developing world Historically, emerging economies have under-invested in health—spending considerably less than developed economies, which has resulted in shortages in health infrastructure and healthcare workers. But this is changing, and emerging economies’ share of global…