ABSTRACT
Increasing longevity coupled with a low fertility rate has led to an ageing population worldwide. It is estimated that the proportion of persons aged 60 years and older in the world will double from 10 per cent to 21 per cent between 2000 and 2050 (i.e. from 600 million to 2,000 million in absolute numbers). In 2025, it is projected that 15 per cent of the world’s population will be aged 60 and older, and the number of older persons in the Asia-Pacific region is estimated to triple from 419 million in 2010 to more than 1.2 billion by 2050, which means that 59 per cent of the world’s population aged 60 years will live in Asia and the Pacific. Since overall population is projected to triple from 438 million in 2010 to 1.26 billion by 2050, one in every four persons in the region will be over 60 years old by then. In East and North-East Asia, which include China, Japan, Mongolia, Korea and the Russian Federation, more than one in every three persons will be older than 60 years (see Figure 55.1). This will signify one of the most important demographic transformations of the forthcoming century.
