The Asia-Pacific region is currently home to about 60 per cent of the world’s population of older persons, defined as people at 60 years or older. The region is experiencing population ageing at an unprecedented pace, due to rapidly falling fertility rates and tremendous improvements in life expectancy. The number of older persons in the region is expected to more than double from 547 million in 2016 to nearly 1.3 billion by 2050. By then, one in four people in the region are expected to be over 60 years old. It is also projected that the proportion of the “oldest-old”, those above 80 years of age, will increase and constitute one fifth of the older population in the region by 2050. Due to the longer life expectancy for women, the majority of older persons are women with their proportion increasing with age: among the population older than 80, 63 per cent are women. In 2017, ESCAP is working towards the completion of the Third Regional Review of the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing - click here to learn more!
