January 2023

Population Aging and Migration

By Panu Poutvaara International migration flows largely reflect demographic patterns and economic opportunities. Migration flows increase in expected income and other pull factors in potential destinations, and in push factors in the origin, like high unemployment, low wages, and high population growth. Migration flows decrease in the geographic and cultural distance between the potential origin and destination, and in other migration costs. To the extent that migrants are employed, immigration can alleviate challenges arising from population aging. Read book here  

Immigrant Swan Song

By Giovanni Peri The immigration debate often focuses on culture, identity, and the economy. In countries such as the Australia, Canada, and the United States where many immigrants—especially those who have moved for economic reasons—assimilate into the labor force quickly, the case for more immigration is built on its potential economic benefits. Research shows that immigration does not reduce the capital intensity of the economy, but rather it allows firms to expand and investments to adjust, and it also promotes...

China’s Population Falls, Heralding a Demographic Crisis

The world’s most populous country has reached a pivotal moment: China’s population has begun to shrink, after a steady, yearslong decline in its birthrate that experts say is irreversible. The government said on Tuesday that 9.56 million people were born in China last year, while 10.41 million people died. It was the first time deaths had outnumbered births in China since the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong’s failed economic experiment that led to widespread famine and death in the 1960s. Chinese...

UN report calls for re-thinking social protection as the world ages

The World Social Report 2023 calls for concrete measures to support the greying global population, amidst escalating pension and healthcare costs. Population ageing is a defining global trend of our time, according to the study, published by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA). Countries can reap the benefits by giving everyone the chance to grow older in good health by promoting equal opportunities from birth. “Together, we can address today’s inequalities for the benefit of tomorrow’s generations, managing the...

The Problem in An Aging Society is Income Distribution

The New York Times had a major article reporting on how many people in South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan are being forced to work well into their seventies because they lack sufficient income to retire. The piece presents this as a problem of aging societies, which will soon hit the United States and other rich countries with declining birth rates and limited immigration. While the plight of the older workers discussed in the article is a real problem, the...

Bracing for the silver tsunami

Since 2011, sales of adult diapers in Japan have outpaced those for infants, reflecting a decline in the country’s fertility rate (live births per woman) from 3.66 in 1950 to around 1.5 by the early 1990s. Since then, Japanese fertility has remained stuck far below the “replacement rate” (2.1), amounting to a mere 1.3 in 2021. And geriatric Japan is not alone. Fertility rates have also dropped below the replacement level in all eurozone countries, and they are strikingly low...

China. Authorities mull measures to address aging population

Moves may include the gradual raising of the national retirement age and changes to the ways senior care is funded. Li Lei reports. As officials wrapped up 12 months of work and planned for the future at closely watched meetings that marked the end of the year, issues involving older people came under the spotlight. Data published by the National Health Commission in October showed that 267 million people, or 18.9 percent of the population, were age 60 and older. That meant...

Korea to take drastic measures to tackle population decline

The government will take drastic measures to tackle Korea's demographic crisis of its falling birthrate and rapidly aging society, said Na Kyung-won, head of the presidential committee on Aging Society and Population Policy, who floated the idea of writing off loans for married couples who give birth to children. "Now is the absolute last chance to take action on the imminent demographic crisis. Responding and adapting to the demographic change is a matter of the nation's survival and sustainability," Na,...

Chipping away at the mystery of immortality: The race to cheat death as populations age in Asia

As Asia ages faster than any other region in the world, the race is on to find ways to slow down the process. There are now 630 million people aged 60 years and above in Asia Pacific, representing 60 per cent of the world's older population. By 2050, that number is projected to increase to 1.3 billion. The research in longevity has advanced to the point of several potential interventions mostly in animal models that might work in humans, said Prof...

Dutch medical specialists: focus on healthy pensions

Medicine and finance can be seen as two very distant disciplines. Perhaps pension fund management is where the two disciplines find common ground. When it comes to pensions, a finance practitioner must be able to think and act with a long-term objective in mind and to put the well-being of its clients above everything else, as a healthcare professional would deal with a patient. That common ground is a strong foundation for Stichting Pensioenfonds Medisch Specialisten (SPMS), the pension fund...