Global aging and demographic policies: a reconsideration

Journal of Globalization Studies. 2025. Vol. 16. No. 1. P. 47–60.

Ustyuzhanin V., Zinkina J. V., Korotayev A.

Population aging is expected to affect large parts of the world in the coming decades, leading to profound changes in various social, economic and financial institutions and infrastructure networks. Raising the old-age retirement
(pension) age has been the most common response of the affected countries to this challenge, but it has proven neither sufficient nor popular with the respective populations. In this paper we analyze the projected magnitude of
global aging under different fertility trajectories. It is shown that the sustainability of national pension systems will become untenable for many countries of the world unless they manage to achieve substantial increases in fertility.
Thus, these countries should implement effective fertility-supporting measures in the near future in order to avoid major social crises. As we can see, fertility-supporting policies have the potential to be a remarkably powerful tool for
offsetting some of the most adverse consequences of population aging.

Keywords: fertility, pension system, demographic forecasting, demographic policies, global aging