May 2025

China steps up support for social participation of seniors amid population aging

From promoting volunteer service and expanding lifelong learning opportunities to developing senior-friendly tourism offerings, China is taking proactive steps to enhance social engagement among the elderly and support their pursuit of active, meaningful lives. These measures, laid out in a guideline released recently by 19 government departments, came as the country grapples with a rapidly aging population. Home to the world's largest elderly demographic, China had over 310 million people aged 60 and above by the end of 2024, accounting for...

A Canadian Approach to Rethinking Technology Design for Aging Populations

By Milena Head Older adults are the fastest-growing segment of the population. In Canada, one in five people are 65 or older, and by 2065, this will increase to more than one in four. Yet, despite their growing numbers, older adults often face exclusion and marginalization in technology design. This digital divide has significant consequences, leading to isolation, loneliness, frustration, and poor health outcomes, particularly when we intersect factors like lower socioeconomic status, race, gender, and immigrant status. Source: @SSRN

Reforming pensions in Africa: Addressing coverage, payoutdisparities, and dementia outcomes for sustainable aging

By yprian M. Mostert, Catherine Ajalo & David Andai We appreciate the thoughtful feedback from scholars who suggest thatwe should have used life expectancy at age 45 or 25 to support ourargument for pension reforms in Africa. While life expectancy at thesespecific ages provides an average estimate of the remaining lifespan, itdoes not capture the nuances of individual survival probabilities, mak-ing it less reliable for certain analyses. This remains a debated topic inthe literature.1,2 Life expectancy at birth, on the...

Denmark. Denmark to raise retirement age to highest in Europe

Denmark is set to have the highest retirement age in Europe after its parliament adopted a law raising it to 70 by 2040. Since 2006, Denmark has tied the official retirement age to life expectancy and has revised it every five years. It is currently 67 but will rise to 68 in 2030 and to 69 in 2035. The retirement age at 70 will apply to all people born after 31 December 1970. The new law passed on Thursday with 81 votes...

Social engagement linked to longer lifespan in older adults

A study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society indicates that social engagement may help older individuals live longer. In the study of 2,268 U.S. individuals aged 60 years and older who completed the Psychosocial and Lifestyle Questionnaires and provided blood samples in 2016, there was a strong association between engaging in social activities and a low risk of 4-year mortality. High social engagement was associated with a 42% lower mortality risk than low engagement. Specific activities, such as charity work, engaging...

The Dual Burden of Housing and Care for Older Adults

As the first baby boomers turn 80 in the coming decade, a growing number of older households will face challenges paying for both housing and the supports and services they will need to remain in their homes. In a new paper out this week, we find that after paying for housing and basic living expenses, only 24 percent of single and partner households age 75 and over had sufficient income to afford a daily paid visit from a home health...

As Rural Populations Grow Older, Communities Increasingly Rely on Smaller Labor Force

Rural populations are shifting older as people live longer, birth rates decline, younger people move out of rural areas, and older people decide to spend their retirement years in rural settings. By the end of 2025, the youngest of the Baby Boom generation (born between 1946 and 1964)—a large generation in total numbers—will have turned 61 and the oldest reached age 79, meaning that many are now in or looking at retirement. Meanwhile, working-age (15–64 years) populations in rural counties...

In Rapidly Aging South Korea, the Economy Is Slow in Creating “Age-Friendly” Jobs

Demographic shifts worldwide have increased the number of older workers, and many economies are facing a critical question: Are their labor markets ready to support older workers? Researchers have found that, in the United States, the surge of older workers has gone hand–in-hand with an increase in the number of “age-friendly jobs” – roles with working conditions more suitable for aging employees, such as placing fewer physical demands or offering greater scheduling flexibility. Yet it remains unclear whether comparable trends...

The vision of younger-seniors-based elderly care in rural China: based on population aging predictions from 2020 to 2050

By Haojian Dou, Cheng Wang, Guishan Cheng, Xiaoyan Lei & Shuang Xu  Population aging is an irreversible and challenging global trend. Factors that worsen it in rural areas include the outflow of young adults, lack of medical resources, and uneven economic development. Based on projections of rural population aging trends in China from 2020 to 2050, this article explores the growth trends and spatial heterogeneity of elderly populations in rural areas. The results indicate that from 2020 to 2050, the...

Germany struggles to fix its pension system

Germany's baby boomers are retiring. Those born between 1955 and 1969, when the birth rate was at an all-time high, are also living longer. The workforce is not growing at the same rate. So who will pay the elderly's pensions? A considerable chunk of the federal budget goes into propping up the statuary pension system and the new Labor Minister, Bärbel Bas from the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), has reiterated an idea of how to partially fix that. The pension system in Germany, established in 1889,...