Wolfram Hedrick and Jonathan Tan, senior
directors for Asia Pacific Risk Center in Singapore, in a recent commentary
said rising healthcare costs could threaten future growth in the world's major
economic engine.
'Elderly healthcare represents a significant
fiscal health risk all across Asia," they said.
Becoming 'aged
societies'
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) says a rise
in public expenditure is "particularly dramatic in East Asia" where
spending in China is set to rise over 50 percent by 2050 due to rapid aging
combined with "relatively high rates of economic growth.
Korea is also showing similar spending increases
"in large part due to population growth."
Keizo Takemi, a member of Japan's House of
Councilors and chair of a committee on global health strategy, told a recent
conference on aging in Hanoi of the anticipated expansion in demand for
healthcare services for the elderly among Asia's middle- and low-income
countries.
Takemi said in Korea, Taiwan, China, Thailand
and Sri Lanka, the aging populations had "advanced rapidly from 2000 on.
These countries are forecast to become aged societies with elderly populations
of 14 percent or more by 2016-2026."
Similar trends, he noted, were also evident
in Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, and Iran, divided between rapidly
aging and slowly aging populations.
But Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, India and
Mongolia are among the countries whose populations will continue to age slowly,
he said.
Japan is already facing the challenges of
adapting to an older population. Some 32 percent or 41 million of Japan's 127
million population is over 60 years old.
Economic
impact
ADB senior economist Donghyun Park said for
Asia, known for its 'Tiger' economies in the 1980s and 1990s, aging populations
are impacting economies.
"The issue is that, and it is well
known, that less favorable demographics is a negative for growth, it's harmful
for growth, so immediately there will be a negative impact on Asia's
growth," Park told VOA.
Asia's substantial "demographic
dividend" - of a young working population as a driver of the region's
economic success, buoyed by sound institutions and positive government
policies, paid off.
But China is a key example of a country where
a rapidly aging population threatens to undermine the economic gains of recent
decades.
"Unfortunately, that [demographic]
dividend is coming to an end. In other words, in some countries already - not
just these very high income countries such as [South] Korea, Singapore and
Taipei, China and Hong Kong - rich countries - in which are demographic crisis
is a here and now problem, but even in middle income countries such as China,"
Park said.
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