Introduction

Abstract

The world is in the midst of a major demographic transition. Not only is the population growth slowing, but the age structure of the population is changing, with the share of the young falling and that of the elderly rising. The sources of population aging lie in two demographic phenomena: rising life expectancy and declining fertility. Population aging is most advanced in the industrialized countries but, with a lag, demographic trends in many developing economies will follow (United Nations, 2006). Because many developing countries are experiencing faster fertility transitions, in the future they will experience even faster population aging than the currently developed countries (Bloom and Williamson (1998) and Weil (2006)).