Wellbeing of the older individuals in East Asia

Rapid demographic transition in East Asia has resulted in “super” aging. Because of steadily decreasing fertility and increasing life expectancy, the proportion of older individuals in the population and the old-age dependency ratio are rising across all East Asian countries, particularly China, the Republic of Korea, and Japan. This study empirically investigated the well-being of older individuals in these three countries using comparable micro-level data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, Korean Longitudinal Study on Aging, and Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement. Specifically, we examined the depressive symptoms scale as a measure of well-being and estimated the impact of four broad categories: demographic; economic; family-social; and health. The decomposition-and-simulation analyses reveal that although differences in the characteristics of older individuals in the three countries among countries explain many differences in mean depression rates, there remain significant differences across countries, which cannot be explained. Even after considering multiple factors, the study found that older individuals in Korea were more likely to be depressed than those in China or Japan.