Population Change, Demographic Dividend and Health Care in Aging Population of ASEAN

The purpose of this study was to investigate the change of population from 1967 – 2060 and to study the demographic dividend among ASEAN countries and health care among aging using qualitative methods from secondary level of population data. It was determined that the population of ASEAN is approximately 600.8 million people or 8.6% of the world population and this amount has tended to continuously increase for 40 years. Nowadays, the population structure consists of 48.3% of laborers, 39.8% with child dependency, and 8.5% of aging dependency while the death rate is very low and birth rate is declining. The total fertility rate of the ASEAN population is 2.4. The demographic dividend could be categorized into three groups including 1) countries that already have passed opportunity, i.e., Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, 2) countries that have had the chance to handle this prime event, i.e., Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam and Myanmar, and 3) countries that will meet this situation in the future, i.e., the Philippines, Cambodia and Lao PDR.

The ASEAN community consists of ten countries as its members which all have different population structures, hence dividend occurs more than once and each country could give a hand to others to help solve problems and clear effects. It may be necessary for countries which have not faced the prime period to learn experiences from those who have passed the period. For labor issues, population segments could be reallocated to countries that lack human development resources resulting in the new trends in health care systems for aging people in the future.