Thailand's ageing population Planning for demographic change

By Jon Fernquest

Medicine is getting better so people are living longer.

Less pressure to have babies at an early age allows more freedom for women to pursue higher education and careers.

This also means fewer children are born each year.

Following these patterns the global population trend in many countries has moved towards fewer young people and more old people.

Today's article, the Bangkok Post editorial from last Friday, discusses this trend as found in Thailand.

Today's article is about demography and population changes and there is a lot of interesting supplementary reading available in this area.

Watch a fascinating data visualization of how improvements in public health and medicine have improved global life expectancies over several decades.

Climate change will impact certain global populations more than others according to the State of the World's Population 2009 issued last week.

In the past several Bangkok Post articles have also dealt with demographic change in Thailand:

1. Recently, the Japanese ambassador to Thailand Kyoji Komachi wrote on how demographic changes in Thailand resemble those of Japan in the past (Read article)

2. An ADB report in 2009 addressed ageing in Asia (Read article)

3. A Bangkok Post article in 2008 explained why there are currently fewer men than women in Thailand (Read article)

[Background Note: Back in the 1970s and 1980s large numbers of young people entered the workforces of Asian economies. Women were also entering the workforce for the first time (Read Paul Krugman article). The number of children dropped and ratio of working people to dependent population (dependency ratio) fell and output per capita rose (See chart below). This is called the demographic dividend and typically happens late in the economic development of a country from a pre-industrial to an industrialized economy. This demographic situation is slowly changing.]

demography (noun) - the study of changes in populations using statistics (See Wikipedia)
demographic (adjective) - regarding the populations of countries, regions, and cities
higher education - studying at college or at a university, studying beyond the required high school education
a workforce - all the people working in an economy
dependent - needing the help of another person to live and survive
dependency ratio - an age-population ratio, ratio of people typically not in the labor force (the dependent part) to those typically in the labor force (the productive part), signals possible increased cost for productive part of population supporting the pensions and living costs of the economically dependent
(See Wikipedia)
output per capita - the amount of goods and services produced per person in a country's economy
demographic dividend - (Read Wikipedia)
supplementary reading - additional reading for a class or on a topic

Preparing for social upheaval

21/11/2009

Several years have passed since Cambridge University geneticist Dr Aubrey de Grey astounded the world by declaring that "the first person to live to be 1,000 years old is certainly alive today... whether they realise it or not".

Although he still believes it to be true, his view is not shared by gerontologists who dismiss the idea of medical science being able to achieve such vastly extended lifespans. But now Danish scientific researchers have come up with a more believable prediction. They claim that more than half the babies born in rich nations today will live to be 100 years old if current life expectancy trends continue. This is based on several factors, not the least of which is the increase in longevity of more than 30 years seen over the course of the 20th century.

social upheaval - a big change in society tha causes a lot of trouble and worry
realise it - know , understand
Y whether they realise it or not - Y is true but maybe they don't that
gerontologists - doctors who specialize in the health problems of older people (See Wikipedia)
lifespan - the length of time that a person lives
vastly extended lifespans - much longer lives
a prediction - stating what you think will happen in the future
life expectancy - how long on average people in a society or country are expected to live
life expectancy trends - whether length of life is generally increasing, decreasing, or remaining flat in a society
longevity - living for a long time

The downside is that smaller workforces will have to shoulder an ever greater burden of ballooning pension and healthcare requirements of the old, critically overloading social and health systems in what will almost certainly be a global trend affecting both rich and poor nations. The upside is that while people will live longer, they are also likely to stay healthier in their later years. For those who are currently middle-aged, it will be comforting to think they can live well past 80. But this could one day bring about a role reversal as 70-year-old "kids" take care of their centenarian parents.

shoulder an ever greater burden - have to pay more and more (to support other people)
pension - a saving system for retirement and old age, "arrangement to provide people with an income when they are no longer earning a regular income from employment" (See Wikipedia)
ballooning pension requirements - more and more older people means more and more money needed to support them
critically overloading social and health systems - too many people using hospitals and other public services so that there is a big problem
the upside - the good points about something
middle-aged - people between age 40 and 60 (See Wikipedia)
role - what a person typically does in an organisation or activity
role reversal - changing role in an acticity to be the opposite
70-year-old "kids" - when 70 year olds are young compared to the huge number of people over 70
centenarian - someone 100 years old or older

Just to complicate the lives of policy strategists even more, the UN Fund for Population Activities this week issued its annual report which says that unless the causes of climate change are brought under control, the outlook for future generations is unpredictable and could turn out to be very bleak indeed.

Population and social planners have a difficult and unenviable task as they contemplate an uncertain future with each successive generation being smaller than the last. According to the Department of Health, the Thai fertility rate has fallen from a peak of 6.8% in 1965 to 1.5% today due to expanded health services and the greater prevalence of contraception that allows women and their partners to plan their families. Our falling birth rate means an ever-decreasing share of the young in the overall population because the fertility rate is now below the replacement level of 2% where a death is equally matched by a birth.

complicate - make more difficult to understand and work with
UN Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), UN Population Fund - "Its stated mission is to promote the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of "health and equal opportunity." UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programs to "reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect." (See Wikipedia and State of the World's Population 2009 report)
bleak - future does not look bright
envy - wishing you had something that another person has
unenviable - problem of another person that you are glad you don't have
contemplate - think about deeply
a generation - the period of time it takes children to grow up and have a family of their own (20 to 30 years), all the people born during roughly the same time period
each successive generation - each group of people born in a society at the same time...followed by another group...and another group..and so on
fertility rate, total fertility rate - "the average number of children that would be born to a woman over her lifetime if (1) she were to experience the exact current age-specific fertility rates (ASFRs) through her lifetime, and (2) she were to survive from birth through the end of her reproductive life" (See Wikipedia)
contraception, birth control - different ways of controlling birth and having babies when you want them, "actions, devices, sexual practices, or medications followed in order to deliberately prevent or reduce the likelihood of pregnancy or childbirth" (See Wikipedia)
prevalence of contraception - how common birth control, how commonly it is used by people, by high percentage or not?
birth rate - the average number of children that couples have in a society or country (See Wikipedia)
fertility rate is now below the replacement level - couples are having fewer babies than the two babies needed to "replace" themselves

The average age when people get married is rising, with more choosing to stay single due to economic factors and modern lifestyle trends. Mahidol University demographers predict the number of children below 15 will decrease from the 2005 figure of 14 million to only nine million in 2035. At the same time, the workforce is expected to increase from the 41 million employed in 2005 to 43 million in 2015, but then fall to less than 38 million by 2035. The dependency rate between working people and the elderly will undergo drastic changes. In 1970, 12 working people took care of one elderly citizen, but by 2035 there could be just two working people bearing the tax burden for each senior.

factors - of the things that affect a situation or decision
economic factors - economic things that affect a situation or decision
demographers - researchers and experts who story population patterns with statistics (See Wikipedia)
dependency rate - an age-population ratio, ratio of people typically not in the labor force (the dependent part) to those typically in the labor force (the productive part), signals possible increased cost for productive part of population supporting the pensions and living costs of the economically dependent
(See Wikipedia)
undergo drastic changes- be changed very very much
elderly - an older person over 65
citizen - a person who is legally accepted as belonging to a country
an elderly citizen - a nice and respectful way of talking about older people in a society
two working people bearing the tax burden for each senior - older people are retired and not working and use government programs that they paid for when they were young and working, fewer working younger people have to pay more taxes to support larger number of older people

So many other factors will come into play over the next few decades that these figures can only be interpreted as guidelines, but clearly a government task force should be thinking and planning ahead.

There is much to do. The country's pension system is not only underfunded at present, but limited in scope. Only about one-third of the labour force and under a quarter of the population are covered by formal pension programmes, including the Social Security Fund, private provident funds and the civil service's Government Pension Fund. This shortcoming will become increasingly costly to society as the number of elderly grows and the number of taxpayers diminishes.

other factors will come into play - other things start to affect a situation or decision
guidelines - useful rules or advice to help you perform some task or engage in some activity
task force - a special group that has been given the responsibility and authority to deal with and solve a problem
underfunded - does not have enough money to operate properly
Social Security Fund - a social insurance program run by the government that provides protection against certain conditions including poverty, old age, disability, and unemployment (See Wikipedia)
civil service - the group of permanent government employees
a shortcoming - something that is not as good as it could be, something that could be improved