Larry Saha Room (Haydon-Allen 2175).  Presented by Don Rowland,Adjunct Reader in Population Studies, School of Sociology, ANU

Risks and Resilience in Population Ageing

Like the ‘inconvenient truth’ of global warming, national and global population ageing raise long-term issues for the twenty-first century. Demographic transition theory formerly portrayed population ageing as a fairly uniform, gradual and benign process, but continuing changes in societies have shown it to be more diverse, rapid and problematic. As countries prepare for the future of ageing and the aged a basic question is: How do countries compare in terms of their past and projected experiences of population ageing? Prospects of an emerging ‘crisis’ or of ‘business as usual’ are both common in the literature on ageing and the future. To test these perspectives and obtain an overview of international trends in ageing, this paper compares selected countries with reference to the ‘risks’ they face from population ageing and their potential resilience as changes occur.