How many elderly people are there for every 100 people of working age in East Asia?

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We’ve already looked at the old-age dependency ratio in Europe. On this map, we’re going to look more closely at East Asia.

One of the problems an ageing country faces, is a large population of elderly people that has to be supported by a smaller number of working age people. This is expressed though the old-age dependency ratio. A low old-age dependency ratio means there are plenty of working age people to financially support the pensioners/elderly people. A high old-age dependency ratio means that there is a lot of financial stress on the working age population to support the elderly. A high old-age dependency ratio also creates more stress on the healthcare system, as there is a large demographic that uses the healthcare system and a small demographic that has to work to financially support it.

The lowest old-age dependency ratios can be found in Mongolia and the western Chinese provinces. These are areas with a very young population, a smaller share of elderly people and a higher fertility rate.

A high old-age dependency ratio can often be found in wealthy nations with a low birth rate. Especially countries that experienced a baby-boom after the Second World War, now see these baby-boomers retiring.

Akita prefecture in Japan, has the highest old-age dependency ratio in East Asia, with 71.4 elderly people per 100 people of working age. Ziyang city (near Chengdu) in China also has a very high old-age dependency ratio. Even higher than the highest areas in South Korea and Taiwan.

Japan has by far the highest old-age dependency ratio in East Asia. Which is not too surprising, as they also have the largest elderly population in East Asia. Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan also have a fairly high old-age dependency ratio. The same goes for several regions in China. having a high share of elderly people doesn’t have to result in a high old-age dependency ratio, as long as the total fertility rate is high enough. But we’ve seen that China and South Korea have the lowest fertility rate in the world. This will probably result in a high old-age dependency ratio in both countries in the future. For China and South Korea, the reality is even worse than what this map shows. The old-age dependency ratio, classifies people of working age as aged 15 to 64. It does not take into account the retirement age in each country. For Japan (64), Taiwan (66) and Hong Kong (65), it’s pretty close to 65. But in China and South Korea, the retirement age is 60 (and 50 or 55 for women in China). In order to support a rapidly growing elderly population with an even more rapidly shrinking work force, China and South Korea have no choice but to raise the retirement age at some point in the near future. Whether they actually will, remains to be seen.