Aging Archives - Pension Policy International

21OctOctober 21, 2026

One-Third of the World’s Population Lives Where Older Adults Already Outnumber Children

More than 2.8 billion people live in countries and territories where adults age 65 and older outnumber children under age 15, according to PRB’s 2026 World Population Data Sheet and Data Explorer. Low fertility, a major driver of population aging, extends much further. Over 70 percent of the world’s population lives in 121 countries and territories where fertility is at or below replacement level. Still, the global population is projected to rise from 8.2 billion in 2026 to 9.6 billion...

October 21, 2026

NewsAging

21OctOctober 21, 2026

How Increased Life Expectancy Impacts Retirement Planning and Longevity Risk

People are living longer nowadays and it could affect how they plan for retirement. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the average life expectancy at birth in 2024 was 76.5 years for males, 81.4 years for females, and 79 years for both sexes. But these averages don’t tell the whole story. Medical advances mean more people are living into their late 80s and 90s than ever before. A longer life means more years in retirement, and that shift...

October 21, 2026

NewsAging, Longevity, Retirement Planning

20OctOctober 20, 2026

Aging populations are straining retirement systems worldwide

Today, Marsh (NYSE: MRSH), a leading global professional services firm, and CFA Institute, the global association of investment professionals, today released the 18th annual Marsh CFA Institute Global Pension Index (MCGPI), comparing 55 retirement income systems across the globe, covering 66% of the world’s population. As fertility rates fall and life expectancies rise, the world’s retirement income systems face mounting pressure. This year’s Index examines how aging populations will impact the design and long-term sustainability of pension systems worldwide –...

October 20, 2026

NewsAdequacy, Aging, Coverage, Sustainability

20OctOctober 20, 2026

Care systems around the world are being put to the test by aging populations

Governments must guarantee older people timely care, value care workers, and keep technology accountable as populations age, according to Dr. Omer Shahab Khan, founder and CEO of Australian aged-care organization OSAN Ability. "An assessed care need should create a service guarantee, not a place in a queue," Khan said. Khan noted that by 2030, 1 in 6 people worldwide will be 60 or older, and that public spending on long-term care in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries is projected...

October 20, 2026

NewsAging, Healthcare

19OctOctober 19, 2026

US. We’re Living Longer. But Are We Living Healthier?

Experts say that if you want to age healthily, you should plan for it. That's what I've tried to do: I played in a soccer league well into my 60s, and I was a regular runner. Those activities kept me fit and active at the time. Now, in my 70s, I hope they continue to pay dividends. Healthy aging is something the Milken Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, has long focused on. Ten years ago, it published a series of essays...

October 19, 2026

NewsAging, Health, Longevity, US

19OctOctober 19, 2026

China. Beijing’s population expected to become super-aged by 2035

The Chinese capital Beijing is expected to become "super-aged" by 2035, with around one-third of its population aged 60 and above, ‌the official Beijing Daily reported. Chinese policymakers have made population planning a key part of the country's economic strategy, and this year the government faces a total potential cost of around 180 billion yuan ($26.92 ⁠billion) to boost births, according to Reuters estimates. One in every three residents of the Chinese capital will be aged 60 or above by 2035,...

October 19, 2026

NewsAging, China

16OctOctober 16, 2026

Optimal Transition Schedules for Retirement Age Increases: Welfare and Intergenerational Fairness

By Yaodi Yong, Jinggong Zhang & Xiaobai Zhu In response to demographic shifts such as declining fertility rates and increasing life expectancy, many countries are raising the full retirement age (FRA). This paper develops a novel optimization framework for designing FRA increase schedules, explicitly balancing the minimization of aggregate welfare loss across affected generations with intergenerational fairness considerations. Within a continuous-time framework, we model welfare loss through disutility functions applied to actuarial losses generated by pension reforms, while incorporating smoothness...

October 16, 2026

Aging, Articles2026, Aging, Pension Reform, Retirement Age, Social Security

16OctOctober 16, 2026

Is Latin America Ready to Grow Old?

The story of Maricarmen, the 87-year-old Madrid woman evicted by police from the apartment she had lived in since 1956 (she died shortly afterward), drew rare international attention for a housing dispute. Yet the same problem afflicts thousands of older people in Latin America. In Mexico City alone, civil society groups have documented more than 1,200 evictions of older residents over the past five years. Those figures hint at something bigger facing many seniors: the struggle simply to live...

October 16, 2026

NewsAging, Latin America, System sustainability

14OctOctober 14, 2026

Why an ageing world is a question for young people

Today’s youth will increasingly age into a world that was not designed for their longer lives. So why is longevity still approached as a matter for older adults? Economies around the world are ageing as a result of falling birthrates and rising lifespans. In fact, over 70% of people worldwide already live in a country whose population is projected to peak before the end of the century. The result is a major transformation at both the societal and individual levels. At...

October 14, 2026

NewsAging, Labor Market, Longevity

12OctOctober 12, 2026

China’s Retirement Wave Is Here. The Pension Math Is Brutal

In 2022, people born in 1962 began turning 60. That was the start. Since then, more than 20 million people a year reach retirement age in China. On an average day, about 60,000 people stop working and start collecting a pension. This will continue for more than a decade. Between 1962 and 1975, China averaged 25.83 million births a year, about 320 million people total. In 1963 alone, 29.34 million babies were born, the highest number in nearly 70 years....

October 12, 2026

NewsAging, China

October 2026