All countries getting older faster but some are not getting richer

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China doubters believe that China will get old before they get rich. This will be a close race as China is still increasing per capita GDP by about 6% to 7.5% per year for several years and has a currency that will likely get a lot stronger. As is often the case the China critics diagnose a problem which could be a lot worse for other developing countries.

Many other countries are getting older a lot faster than the developed countries did while not reliably improving per capita income.

France and Sweden, which reached the 7 per cent point of the population age 65 or older before 1900, took 114 years and 82 years, respectively, to reach 14 per cent. That same transition required only 24 years in Japan, from 1970 to 1994. Several developing countries shown in figure IV will also make a rapid transition from 7 to 14 per cent aged 65 or older. Brazil, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea and Tunisia are projected to make this transition in a time-span of under 25 years, and the two most populous countries, China and India, may require only 25 and 28 years, respectively.

Pretty much all countries are getting older faster than before but many are not getting richer fast enough.

India has fallen back to about 5% GDP growth. Indonesia’s growth could be faltering and both have about 10% inflation. Many other countries are in the 3-5% GDP growth range.

There are many countries that are not improving as rapidly as China but are aging as fast or nearly as fast.

Japan and Germany have over 20% of their population over the age of 65 now.

Here is a presentation on world aging.

Argentina is rapidly aging and already as 12% of the population over 65.

Ukraine only has about $2500 per capita but has over 15% of the population over 65.

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