Longevity Without Borders: Why Ageing Is The Next Global Policy Imperative
The next billion older adults won’t live where the systems are ready.
We talk endlessly about ageing as a “Western problem” — pension crises in Europe, shrinking workforces in Japan, healthcare costs in the US. It makes for dramatic headlines. But it is also increasingly misleading. The real demographic acceleration is happening elsewhere.
By 2050, nearly 85% of the growth in the world’s 65+ population will occur in low- and middle-income countries. Four out of five older adults will live there. And many of those countries are ageing far faster — and at much lower income levels — than today’s rich nations ever did.
AARP’s Director of Global Ageing, Vijeth Iyengar, argues that “equitable ageing” must move from demographic sidebar to development strategy. In other words, longevity is not a welfare issue to be managed — it is a structural force that must be designed into economic, labour, health and social systems from the outset.
AARP’s report, Achieving Equitable Healthy Ageing in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, examines how governments are responding — and where the gaps are largest. For those of us thinking about longevity leadership, this is not a distant policy discussion. It is the front line of the longevity economy.
Here’s what matters.
