Aging Challenges Asia-Pacific

The combination of a fast-expanding aging population, declining birth rate and a lack of social provision will bring formidable challenges to the Asia-Pacific region, a UN regional arm warned in Bangkok Friday.

In a report to be presented to its 58th annual meeting next week, the local-based UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (>ESCAP) said as birth rates in East and Southeast Asia have been dropping for years, the aging population in the Asia-Pacific region is growing rapidly.

"For example, in 1980, the number of Indonesians aged 65 and older was just 3.3 percent of the country's total population. But by 2000, it accounted for 7.6 percent of the population," it said.

During the same period, the report said in China and Thailand, the share of aged people in the total population had also increased from 4.7 percent and 3.5 percent to 10 percent and 8.1 percent, respectively.

In the region as a whole, the number of people aged 65 and above is expected to more than double between 1995 and 2050.

The growing "graying population" means more elders need to be supported and a shrinking labor force.

Moreover, because many developing countries in the region have few social programs for their aged citizens compared with developed countries, the social and economic impact of aging will be greater.

The ESCAP report also pointed out that the majority of the region's rural aged still have no access to pension and the femaleaging population is most negatively affected by lack of living provisions.

On the positive side, the report said in recent years, some countries in the region have taken steps to expand or upgrade public measures for the aged while others are going to introduce social programs for the aged for the first time.

However, "to meet the looming challenges of aging, it is very clear much more will need to be done," it concluded.

The 61-member ESCAP is the largest intergovernmental socioeconomic organization in the Asia-Pacific region.

(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2002)