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Developing Asia has grown faster than other parts of the world for decades. However, population aging is expected to pose significant headwinds to the region’s future economic growth. We update and enhance the analysis of Park and Shin (2012) to project the impact of population aging on developing Asia’s growth between 2021 and 2050. Our projections indicate that a demographic transition will have a substantial negative effect on the region’s future growth, but the effect varies across economies. Older economies will suffer a demographic tax, whereas younger economies will continue to enjoy a positive but declining demographic dividend.

This paper uses two methodologies to explore the extent to which greater labor force participation among older Malaysians can expand Malaysia’s labor supply. The Milligan–Wise method estimates the potential to increase the labor force participation rate of older Malaysians by estimating how much they would work if they were to work as much as those with the same mortality rate in the past. The Cutler, Meara, and Richards-Shubik (2013) method estimates the same potential by estimating how much older Malaysians would work if they worked as much as their younger counterparts in similar health. We made further simulations to quantify the capacity of older Malaysians to work after they are 60 years old. The results show significant additional work capacity among older people in Malaysia, particularly males, urban dwellers, and those with low educational attainment.

The People’s Republic of China is aging rapidly at one of the most rapid paces in the world. The resulting decline in the share of the population that is of working age creates challenges for both the economy and society, making it relevant to explore the health capacity to work among older persons. Using census data and data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, this paper applies two widely used methods to estimate the additional health capacity to work. The results confirm large untapped work capacity in the population of older persons, but the additional health capacity to work is unevenly distributed among different groups: Women and urban residents have more additional work capacity than men and older persons in rural areas. Pension systems and variation in types of work contribute to the urban–rural difference.