Nevertheless, healthcare for the elderly is a large and increasing cost that is often heavily subsidized by the public sector, and familial transfers to the elderly may be very important in Asia. Thus, aging in Asia may lead to large implicit debts that are shared by taxpayers and the adult children of the elderly. If the needs of a growing elderly population are met through greater reliance on lifecycle saving, population aging will lead to an increase in assets with favorable implications for economic growth. Previous studies and the following analysis show that through this mechanism, changes in age structure can lead to the second demographic dividend (Mason and Lee, 2007), that is, to higher standards of living that persist long after the favorable effects of the first dividend have ended.