The East Asia-Pacific region is aging at a faster rate than any other place in history, the World Bank warned yesterday, a demographic shift likely to cramp public services and economic growth.
The region, which spans from Myanmar and China’s western borders to Japan, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific islands, is now home to a third of the world’s population aged older than 65 — about 211 million people.
That lurch toward older populations is to have a significant impact on economic growth in an area of the globe that has been financially booming for much of the last two decades, according to the study.
The report is titled Live Long and Prosper: Aging in East Asia and Pacific — a reference to the Vulcan salute from the Star Trek science-fiction series.
Sharp falls in birthrates and a rise in life expectancy are likely to heap pressure on public services, while economies are to struggle to fill the shortfall of working-age employees.
The region “has undergone the most dramatic demographic transition we have ever seen,” World Bank East Asia and Pacific regional vice president Axel van Trotsenburg said.
“All developing countries in the region risk getting old before getting rich,” he added.
Much of the swing toward a graying population is taken up by China — home to 130 million people older than 65 — but other middle-income nations like Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia are also swiftly aging.
Industrialized East Asian nations such as Japan and South Korea have already experienced decades of aging populations. Poorer nations, such as Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines, are not expected to see a significant swing toward an older demographic for another two decades or so.
The report’s authors warn most East Asian health systems are not prepared for the demands on healthcare and pensions posed by an aging populations, compounding the impact of a shrinking workforce.
Calling for “a comprehensive policy approach across the life cycle,” the report urged nations to build and invest in childcare, education, healthcare and pensions to offset the demographic time bomb.
The report recommends a range of reforms, such as encouraging more women to join the labor force, a policy Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is currently pushing with limited success.
Industrialized nations like Japan and South Korea also need to open their labor markets up to immigrants, something both nations are historically reluctant to do.
Middle-income nations like China, Vietnam and Thailand should also remove incentives in pension systems that often encourage workers to retire early or increase the retirement age, the bank said.
The report’s authors estimate that unless reforms are implemented, South Korea’s working age population is to decline by 15 percent by 2040. China, Japan and Thailand are to see a 10 percent reduction over the same period.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion
UNDER INVESTIGATION: Members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with the police about the boy, who officials said might have been radicalized online A 16-year-old boy armed with a knife was shot dead by police after he stabbed a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth, officials said yesterday. The incident occurred in the parking lot of a hardware store in suburban Willetton on Saturday night. The teen attacked the man and then rushed at police officers before he was shot, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook told reporters. “There are indications he had been radicalized online,” Cook told a news conference, adding that it appeared he acted alone. A man in his 30s was found at the scene with a stab wound to his back.