Could the fastest shrinking population happen in Asia? Well, if we look at the larger ones, Asia has China, India and Indonesia. China has 1.44 billion population, India has 1.38 billion and Indonesia has 274 million. These three countries alone account for 3.1 billion population out of the world’s 7.8 billion population. This is 40% of the world’s population. Just these three countries alone. Please refer to information source here. So, we do have a super huge population here in Asia. However would we also have the fastest shrinking population as well?
Article in sciencedaily.com The study as published in the article was a study on the world population and partly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It was conducted by researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
It says that based on its study, many of the fastest-shrinking populations will be in Asia as well as central and eastern Europe. It expected populations to halve in 23 countries and territories including the following:
Japan (from around 128 million people in 2017 to 60 million in 2100)
Thailand (71 to 35 million)
Spain (46 to 23 million)
Italy (61 to 31 million)
Portugal (11 to 5 million)
South Korea (53 to 27 million).
An additional 34 countries are expected to have population declines of 25 to 50%, including China (1.4 billion in 2017 to 732 million in 2100. Please do read the study in the article. It’s a comprehensive one. Click here to read: Article in sciencedaily.com
Who are these nations?
We could see that the three ASIAN countries mentioned, Japan, Thailand and South Korea are already super-aged nations or very close to become super-aged nation. Japan’s population of 65 years or older has reached 22% of the country. Thailand is at around 20% and South Korea is now at 15.5%. So, it’s quite true that ASIA does have countries with the fastest shrinking population of the world is in Asia.
What is ageing, aged and super-aged nation?
Coming back to the definition of an ageing nation which will definitely become one candidate for fastest shrinking populations in the future. Briefly, ageing nation is when 7% of total population in the country are 65 years old or higher. Aged nation would be nations with 15% of its population being 65 years old or higher. Any country with 20% or higher of its population aged 65 or higher will be known as super-aged nation. To read a little more about it, click here.
Median age fo these ASIAN nations
Median age for Japan, Thailand and South Korea is 47, 39 and 41 respectively. Briefly, median age for Malaysia is 29 and we are moving towards becoming an ageing nation by 2030. What an ageing population will bring would be threats to the nation. There will be fewer working population, fewer people paying taxes and yet more people in need of healthcare, more people in need of financial assistance as their retirement funds may not be enough and this will become a social issue in the future.
Retirement age is being extended all around the world
This is already happening in many advanced nations. Some are already extending the retirement age and even 65 may just be common rather than uncommon in the near future. By 2028, UK’s retirement age will be 67. Yes, 67!! By 2022, Singapore’s retirement age is 63 and if employee wants to work, they will be allowed to work until 68! For Germany retirement age is 65 by 2022 and by 2029 it will become 67 years. For Australia, retirement age is between 66 / 67, depending on your year of birth. For Japan, it is 63 years old. Please understand all these HAVE HAPPENED and it will definitely happen in all other ageing, aged and super aged nations too.
Perhaps this title of fastest shrinking populations may not yet happen in Malaysia. However, it is a matter of time and this is why we need to be serious about it. The great thing is that we do have early warning because we are still a developing nation. The bad thing is that many would just choose to ignore and do nothing about it. Well, it’s a choice. Until then, happy working and hopefully investing too.
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