The demographic transition towards older societies demands a post-2030 agenda that embeds ageing within human capital, productivity, and social protection systems
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Population ageing is emerging as a defining structural shift of the 21st century. Yet, it remains curiously under-theorised in mainstream development discourse. The rise in the ageing population has been driven primarily by two forces: a) the remarkable strides in extending life expectancy, driven by advances in medicine, nutrition, and public health; and b) declining fertility rates across virtually all geographies. The result is a rapid and irreversible increase in the share of older persons in the global population.
Source: Created by the authors from Statista.com
Figure 1 shows an ageing world. From 8 percent of the global population aged 60 and over in 1950, the share has increased to more than 14 percent in 2023. By 2050, this figure is expected to rise to over 22 percent, amounting to approximately 2.1 billion people. Even more striking is the growth in the oldest cohorts: the population aged 80 and above is projected to exceed 400 million (comprising 4 percent of the global population) in 2050, up from 110 million (1.6 percent of the global population) in 2011. This is not merely a demographic transition; it is a transformation of economic structures, social contracts, and governance systems. By the mid-2030s, people aged 80+ will outnumber infants, shifting demographic structures.
This omission is not merely technical; it reflects a deeper conceptual gap. Ageing is not just another vulnerability—it is a condition that interacts with and amplifies existing inequalities. The SDG framework, in its current form, inadequately captures this intersectionality.
While ageing is most pronounced in countries such as Japan, Italy, and Germany, the phenomenon is no longer confined to high-income economies. Large developing countries such as China and India, that together account for over a third of the global population, are also entering this phase, albeit through different trajectories. China is already experiencing population shrinkage alongside rapid ageing, while India, though still benefiting from a demographic dividend, is expected to see its share of the elderly double to over 20 percent by mid-century. And here lies the paradox: though ageing has emerged as a central demographic reality, it remains peripheral in global development frameworks.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with their normative commitment to “leave no one behind” and their status as the central pillar of global development governance, were expected to offer a universal and inclusive development framework. Yet, in practice, ageing has been subsumed within a broader category of vulnerability, rather than treated as a distinct structural concern.
Only three SDGs, namely, Zero Hunger (SDG 2), Reduced Inequalities (SDG 10), and Sustainable Cities (SDG 11), explicitly refer to older persons, and even these references are limited in scope. Nutritional needs, inclusive participation, and accessible transport are acknowledged, but the multidimensional realities of ageing—health deterioration, income insecurity, social isolation, and systemic neglect—remain largely unaddressed.
This omission is not merely technical; it reflects a deeper conceptual gap. Ageing is not just another vulnerability—it is a condition that interacts with and amplifies existing inequalities. The SDG framework, in its current form, inadequately captures this intersectionality.
For instance, older individuals often face compounded disadvantages due to disability, poverty, and social exclusion. Older women, in particular, experience a “double jeopardy” of gender and age—manifested in lower lifetime earnings, limited asset ownership, and higher dependence ratios. Yet, unlike gender-based violence or child protection, elder abuse remains largely invisible in global policy discourse.
Available evidence suggests that approximately one in six older persons experiences some form of abuse—ranging from psychological and financial exploitation to physical violence. In institutional settings, the prevalence is even more alarming, with over two-thirds of caregivers admitting to abusive behaviour. These are symptomatic of systemic failures that demand explicit recognition in global development frameworks.
The implications of an increasing proportion of an ageing population extend far beyond the plain-vanilla demographic arithmetic often expressed through the dependency ratio. Such a number is a reductionist way of expressing the challenge: it hardly captures how ageing, as a phenomenon, reshapes and redefines the very foundations of economic and social systems.
First, health systems face unprecedented strain. Older populations are characterised by a higher prevalence of chronic diseases, multi-morbidity, and declining functional capacities. The challenge is even more pronounced in the developing world, where most health systems are still oriented towards acute care rather than long-term, geriatric, and palliative care. This creates a structural mismatch between the emerging needs and institutional capacity.
Second, the feminisation of ageing introduces a critical gender dimension. Women tend to live longer than men but often with poorer health outcomes and greater financial insecurity. Their life-course disadvantages, stemming from unequal labour market participation, unpaid care burdens, and discriminatory inheritance norms, translate into heightened vulnerability in old age. Existing policies remain fragmented, gender-neutral, and inadequate to address their specific needs. Any meaningful ageing policy must be gender-sensitive and comprehensive, integrating healthcare access, economic empowerment, and social inclusion.
Any meaningful ageing policy must be gender-sensitive and comprehensive, integrating healthcare access, economic empowerment, and social inclusion.
Third, poverty in old age is often a lived reality and remains an inadequately understood challenge. With limited formal pension coverage in the developing nations, the situation is far more precarious. The majority of older persons continue to work in informal, low-paying jobs or remain dependent on family support systems that are themselves under stress. However, the advanced economies are not immune to this problem either, with around 15 percent of people over 65 in OECD countries living in relative income poverty.
Fourth, the macroeconomic implications of ageing can be perceived in growth, tax revenues, and fiscal pressures. With the working-age population shrinking, economic growth will be constrained from the production or supply side. On the demand side, there is also a shrinkage in consumer demand, as private consumption is largely driven by the youth. This has implications for both direct and indirect tax collections. In the process, fiscal pressures are aggravated due to lower tax inflows and rising health and social security expenditures. These pressure points cannot be captured by the traditional dependency ratio framework.
The question is: Can ageing, rather than being viewed as an economic burden, be converted to an economic asset? There is no doubt that, from an equity and distributive justice perspective, policies to protect the well-being of the elderly through healthy ageing are the need of the hour. But the efficiency argument can be infused in the equity-based healthy ageing paradigm through the “silver dividend” argument. The silver dividend refers to the economic and social value generated by active, healthy, and engaged older populations. This reverses the age-old paradigm of viewing the elderly as dependents—they are now seen as contributors and productive forces in the economy.
The silver dividend refers to the economic and social value generated by active, healthy, and engaged older populations. This reverses the age-old paradigm of viewing the elderly as dependents—they are now seen as contributors and productive forces in the economy.
Japan offers a replicable prototype here. Faced with a declining workforce and rapid ageing, Japan has actively promoted senior employment, extended retirement ages, and invested in lifelong learning and reskilling, thereby mitigating labour shortages and enhancing the well-being and dignity of older individuals. This has implications for a populous youth-heavy country like India, whose window of demographic dividend is ephemeral and expected to peak around the early 2040s. The imperative, then, will be to transition towards a silver dividend framework by investing in health, skilling, and social protection systems to create a productive workforce among older populations.
This clearly creates the case for the post-2030 global development agenda to move beyond the implicit inclusion of older persons to explicit prioritisation. Enabling the silver dividend through healthy ageing needs to be a development goal in its own right, not merely an implicit cross-cutting development issue across other goals.
This requires a multidimensional policy architecture:
Health systems transformation towards preventive, geriatric, and long-term care models
Universal and portable social protection systems, including pensions and insurance
Age-friendly urban design, ensuring accessibility, mobility, and safety
Lifelong learning ecosystems to enable continued economic participation
Care economy investments, recognising caregiving as both a social and economic sector
Data systems that capture age-disaggregated realities for evidence-based policymaking
Importantly, ageing must be embedded within a broader framework of human capital and productivity. The past two decades have seen important global initiatives, including the Madrid International Plan of Action on Ageing and the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030). These provide a foundational architecture. However, what is required now is a transition from normative frameworks to actionable, measurable, and financeable commitments.
Longevity is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. Yet, without the right policy architecture, it risks becoming a source of vulnerability rather than empowerment. The central question for the post-2030 era is not whether populations will age—they will. The question is whether societies can transform ageing from a demographic inevitability into a development opportunity.
This requires reimagining ageing through the lenses of equity, productivity, and dignity. It calls for moving beyond fragmented interventions towards a coherent, systems-based approach that integrates health, economics, and social policy.
In many ways, the ageing challenge mirrors the broader development paradox of our times: progress without preparedness. The task ahead is to bridge this gap—not merely by extending life, but by enhancing the quality, agency, and dignity of those additional years.
Nilanjan Ghosh is Vice President - Development Studies at the Observer Research Foundation.
Malancha Chakrabarty is a Senior Fellow and Deputy Director (Research) at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Dr Nilanjan Ghosh heads Development Studies at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and serves as the operational and executive head of ORF’s Kolkata Centre. He ...
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Dr Malancha Chakrabarty is Senior Fellow and Deputy Director (Research) at the Observer Research Foundation where she coordinates the research centre Centre for New Economic ...
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