Population pressure rising

Even though the ESCAP region has been successful in slowing population growth, Asia will account for half of the global population increase every year, or about 1 billion persons in the next quarter century, according to a new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). That report, entitled "Population Policy Paper," states that Asia will be the global center of population aging largely because of big increases in the number of persons over the age of 65 in China, Japan and the region's newly industrializing economies. "By the year 2000, 86% of the world's aged will be in the Asia-Pacific region and by the year 2025 there are projected to be 687 million persons over the age of 65 in the region, placing unprecedented strains on economic and social systems far beyond what traditional extended family networks can absorb," the paper says. But the report also considers other aspects of overall population increase. "The prospect of an additional billion or so people in Asia over the next 25 years is daunting, since the implications for poverty, economic growth, unemployment and environmental quality are immense," it adds. The region's economies will have to scramble to generate jobs and livelihoods for tens of millions of young people for the next several decades. Rural-to-urban migration trends threaten the collapse of urban infrastructure, with the social tensions and political instability that such troubles bring, the report states.