Population Ageing, Lifelong Learning and Socio-Economic Development: Implication on Nigeria

Abstract

This study examines the impact lifelong learning can aid demographic phenomenon which is an inevitable global occurrence happening from country to country and from continent to continent to have on socio-economic development of the country Nigeria. It started in the nineteenth century in the developed countries with decline in death rate and increase in birth rate. The study adopted descriptive study of the survey type. Two research questions and four hypotheses were raised for the study. All participants who have profited from lifelong learning or in-service professional development activities in Lagos State made up the study's targeted group and 611 individuals were subsequently chosen from Lagos State's six main zones using the snowball technique. Experts Tests and Measurement Unit and the Department of Adult Education evaluated the study instrument to guarantee its validity. This was done to make sure that all of the component variables of the research questions and study hypotheses were sufficiently covered by the questionnaire items. Then, a pilot test of the 22-item instrument was conducted in Oyo state. Using Cronbach Alpha's measure, the instrument's reliability coefficient was determined, and the result was a reliability index of 0.91. Simple frequency count, simple percentage, mean, and standard deviation were used to produce answers to the research questions while t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to evaluate the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. This study has established that population ageing and lifelong learning is impactful to socio-economic development in Nigeria. Therefore, it is recommended among other things that government policies should be very effective at addressing the economic implications of population ageing.