The phenomena of population ageing is a crucial demographic issue of modern Europę which influences various aspects of socio-economic life. Its main determinants are fertility decline below replacement level and the decrease of mortality in older age groups resulting from the lengthening of life expectancy. On a regional scalę the level and dynamics of population ageing is also influenced by migration which are selective by age. The spatial patterns of population ageing are the conseąuences of population distribution in core agglomerations, suburban zones and peripheral areas. The article aims at answering the following questions: what is the distribution of the elderly (population aged 65+) in various sized towns, what ageing patterns we can distinguish resulting from the social-economic transition taking into account the spatial shifts in population concentration and finally what is the impact of suburbanization processes on population
age structure on the example of selected metropolitan areas in Poland.
The analysis showed that the largest percentages of the elderly were observed in rural areas in 1988 and in large towns in 2007 and even morę significant differences between the size of urban areas and population ageing were recorded with the use of an ageing index. Spatially, the highest level of ageing occurred in large and middle towns in Lower and Upper Silesia as well as in Warsaw and Lodź agglomeration. In case of smali towns the highest level of ageing was obser ved in eastern part of Poland. The dynamics of ageing has been the highest in middle towns while in the largest centres the ageing has decelerated. It is expected to increase the dynamics of ageing in smali and very smali urban areas. The population of metropolitan zones is demographicallyyounger than the population of core cities, however recently metropolitan areas show morę rapid ageing than their core cities and the continuation of this trend is expected which may reduce the differences.
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