UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - People around the globe are having fewer children and living longer, turning not only Europe but large parts of the developing world into aging societies without the social services to cope.

In too many countries the old are neglected and abused, even if still productive, and have few health means or pensions to live properly, the United Nations says in preparing for the Second World Assembly on Aging in Madrid from April 8-12.

"In Africa, when an old man dies, a library disappears," said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "Without the knowledge and wisdom of the old, the young would never know where they come from or where they belong."

The figures are startling: in the next 50 years, the number of people above 60 years of age will nearly quadruple, growing from about 600 million to almost 2 billion people. Today, one in every 10 persons is 60 years or older but by 2050, one out of every 5 people will be an older person, UN figures show.

And in Europe, the aging population is growing at such a rapid rate, several nations are considering easing immigration policies so more young people can pay for social services for the old. But in poor countries, such safety nets do not exist.

The Madrid conference, Venezuelan Ambassador Milos Alcalay said on Wednesday, would focus on developing nations, where old people do not enjoy retirement but face poverty.

"We are having a prolongation of life but in what human conditions are elder people living?" said Alcalay, head of the Group of 77, a body of 130 developing countries.

The Madrid meeting is expected to adopt guidelines ranging from calls for social services to eradicating age discrimination and stereotyping of the old.

The challenge the conference hopes to meet is to force governments to look at advantages of social restructuring since vast changes in society will happen anyway.

With young people moving to urban centers, housing is scarce and traditional extended family structures fall apart. "There isn't a system in place in developing countries to look after older people other than the family," said Nitin Desai, UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs.

Today the median age for the world is 26 years. The country with the youngest population is Yemen, with an average age of 15, and the oldest is Japan, with a median age of 41 years. By 2050, the average world age is expected to have increased to 36 years. The youngest people will be in Niger, the oldest in Spain.

"We must be fully aware that while the developed countries became rich before they became old, the developing countries will become old before they come rich," said Gro Harlem Brundtland, head of the World Health Organization.

In France, it took 115 years, from 1865 to 1980, for the proportion of older persons in the population to double from 7% to 17%. But developing nations are expected to see the older population increase by 200% to 300% over a period of only 35 years.

In Colombia, Malaysia, Kenya, Thailand and Ghana, the rate of increase in older people between 1990 and 2025 is expected to be 7% or 8% higher than in Britain or Sweden.

Dr. Robert Butler, founding director of the US National Institute on Aging, calls the aging phenomenon "the most significant population shift in history."

He said the three main factors behind greater longevity are advances in public health, better nutrition and immunizations that prevent once-deadly infectious diseases.

Women, he said, outlive men in all but two countries--Pakistan and Bangladesh. And boys contract more infectious diseases than girls and are more prone to cut short their lives through cigarettes and alcohol.

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