With over 1.3 billion people, China is the most populous country in the world. Life
expectancy has increased from 50 in the 1960s to 65 in the 1970s, and by 2010 was 72.54
for men and 76.77 for women (according to US Census Bureau lifetables for China).
Figure 1 draws from the UN medium variant prediction to illustrate the increase in
China’s median age between 1960 and 2060. Within the next decade, China is projected
to have median age greater than that of the US—at a much lower level of per capita
income. As also shown in Figure 1, Japan has among the oldest age structures ever
observed in any society, stemming from earlier, continuing longevity increases and
below-replacement fertility. Perhaps less well-known is that South Korea is aging even
more rapidly, with median age now above that of the US and converging to the extremely
high level of Japan.