ASIA: Growing Old the Hard Way: China, Russia, India, by Nicholas Eberstadt WASHINGTON DC (Policy Review), April 30, 2006: The April-May edition of the bi-monthly POLICY REVIEW published by the Hoover Institution here has a feature on ageing.
Abstract
The focus is on China, Russia and India. Over the past decade and a half, the phenomenon of population aging in the “traditional” or already affluent OECD societies has become a topic of sustained policy analysis and concern. The reasons for this growing attention — and apprehension — are clear enough. By such metrics as median age or proportion of total population above the age of 65, virtually every developed society today is more elderly than practically any human society ever surveyed before the year 1950 — and every single currently developed society is slated to experience considerable further population aging in the decades immediately ahead. In all of the affluent societies, the proportion of what is customarily called the “retirement age population” (65 years of age or older) will steadily swell, with the most rapid expansion occurring among those aged 80 or more….