Demographics

Thailand took a momentous step on 24 August  —not only because of a shock decision by the Constitutional Court to suspend Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha from his duties, but also because parliament finally passed a historic anti-torture bill. Once fully enacted, the Bill, formally known as ...

Asian countries have traditionally enjoyed large demographic dividends—i.e. increases in labor supply and savings—that have boosted economic growth. But this decade, the share of working-age population most notably in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of Korea has started to shrink, following ...

The long-awaited and final section of the 2014 census will be revealed within four months, the Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population, adding that preparations for the release of the ethnicity data are underway now. U Myint Kyaing, permanent secretary of the ministry, told The ...

Even as more Singaporeans had babies last year, Singapore’s population growth remained low, rising 1.3 per cent to reach 5.61 million in June. The statistics, released on September 27 by the National Population and Talent Division in its annual Population in Brief report, also showed that ...

Ageing populations will hit Asia hard, but younger, poorer countries like Cambodia will buck the trend for several decades, the World Bank found in a massive demographic study released on 9 December. While working-age populations will shrink 10 per cent in countries like China, Thailand and ...

Rapid drops in both birth and death rates, combined with a much longer life expectancy, have created a new set of challenges for Vietnam as its inadequate healthcare and welfare systems are failing to catch up with an aging population, officials said.    They warned at a ...