Two years ago, more than twenty two percent of Japan’s population was age sixty-five years or older. In recent weeks, Japanese political leaders have been asked how they plan to care for the growing number of older adults.

In Thailand, the population older than sixty-five rose to just over seven percent in twenty-ten from three point six percent in nineteen seventy-five. Thailand’s family planning efforts have led to much-smaller families. In the nineteen sixties, mothers had an average of five to six children. Now, that number has fallen to one point five. That is well below the number of births needed to keep the population count unchanged.

Vipan Prachuabmoh is dean of population studies at Chulalongkorn University. She says the falling population threatens to have a long term effect.

“We concerned that we will have decline in the number of population in the labor force age -- right, so, so the numbers starting to decline. And we also see that we have very sharp rising in term of number and proportion of population in the old age group. So now we start to concern about the sustainability, development of the country because we still have problem in term of, we have, in term of human capital.”

The problem for governments is that increasing population growth to help keep productivity levels high can also create problems. Vipan Prachuabmoh says those issues include reforming the education system, increasing labor skills and preparing a new generation for an aging society.