ABSTRACT
Demographic changes have signifi cant impacts on the social and economic performances of countries, regions and the whole world. Recently, the most observable demographic change is the phenomenon of rapidly aging population, and this trend is expected to continue in the coming years. With the defi nition of an elderly person as aged 60 years and over, the medium-variant population projections of the United Nations (2008) show that the number of elderly people will increase from 759 million in 2010 (or 11% of the world population) to around two billion people in 2050 (or 22% of the world population). In the developing countries that become old before becoming rich, population aging will present various challenges for public policies. In addition, under profound social and economic changes stemming from modernization and urbanization, the weakening of family bonds also suggests an urgent task for old age security in developing countries, where social protection systems, especially pension schemes, are underdeveloped with limited coverage (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2007 ).
