Joint US-Canada-Japan Forum on
The Overselling of Population Aging

Sponsored by:

The Asia Foundation and Canadian Embassy

Time:

July 10, 2002, 2:00 p.m to 5:00 p.m

Place:

Canadian Embassy Map

All around the world, governments are raising taxes and cutting social services to prepare for the “crisis of rapid population aging.” But is the increase in the elderly population the real cause of the ills of the world's developed economies?

Ellen Gee and Gloria Gutman, co-editors of "Overselling Population Aging" (Oxford, 2000) state that the statistical methods used to show that an aging population is a burden on the economy are out of date. Unlike in the past, the majority of those over 65 are healthy and productive, say Gee and Gutman. Moreover, services and gifts the old give to the young, while of great help to the economy, rarely show up in GDP figures.

Economist Mari Osawa (Tokyo University) states that while the elderly are seen as the cause of increased health care costs in Japan, only a small portion of the increase can be linked to population aging. Dr Hajime Orimo (Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Center) asserts that the cost of health care for the elderly is by no means as high as is generally believed.

Prof Chikako Usui (University of Missouri) suggests that the culprit is not demographics but economics. If the Japanese economy grew by 2.5 percent, we would not hear much about the problems of an aging population, says Dr Usui. Paul Talcott (Emory University) sees Japan's elderly as remarkably well taken care of considering the fact that unlike in the United States there are no pressure groups representing retired persons.

Speakers: Ellen Gee, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University, Canada
Gloria Gutman, Director, Gerontological Research Center, Simon Fraser University; President, the International Association of Gerontology
Hajime Orimo, Director, Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Center.
Mari Osawa, Professor of Economics, Institute of Social Science, Tokyo University
Paul Talcott, Assistant Professor, Dept of Political Science, Emory University.
Chikako Usui, Associate Professor, Dept. of Sociology and Graduate Program in Gerontology, University of Missouri-St. Louis
Andrew Horvat, Japan Representative, The Asia Foundation

materials:
 Panelist`s Profile
 Program
 Conference Notes
 Ellen Gee interview, Asahi Shimbun August 5, 2002
 Population Aging: The Real Villain? by Ellen Gee
 Japan and the Crisis of Aging Reconsidered by Chikako Usui