Comparing ageing in Europe and Asia: adjusting for life-expectancy and cross-country differences

Arun Balachandran, University of Groningen
Joop de Beer, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI)
K. S. James, Institute for Social and Economic Change, India
Leo van Wissen, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) and University of Groningen
Fanny Janssen, Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) and University of Groningen

Traditional indicators of ageing misleads the population ageing scenario in different countries. New measurements of ageing either uses a constant remaining life expectancy to define elderly (Sanderson and Scherbov, 2005,2007) or define elderly based on the age distribution (Sanderson and Scherbov, 2005,2007). But, there are also cross-country differences in whom is to be considered as elderly. In this paper, we combine In this paper, we use the characteristic approach framework (Sanderson and Scherbov, 2013) and understand the cross-country differences in elderly using survival analysis. Our results agree with the new measures of ageing that the traditional measures of elderly has been misleading. The results also suggest when the cross-country differences in elderly is accommodated, that the Old age dependency differences between European and Asian countries is lesser and there are some trend reversals for some countries.