In August 2025, at the APEC dialogue held in Incheon, South Korea, “demographic change” was set as a comprehensive issue at the organizational level for the first time. This decision marks a shift in the economic cooperation framework of the region, gradually moving from traditional “trade and investment” issues to deeper challenges, such as “social structure and population dynamics.”
Background and triggering factors
The APEC region is currently undergoing significant changes in population and age structure. According to the report “Addressing Demographic Change in the APEC Region” released by the APEC Policy Support Unit (PSU), the fertility rate in this region has dropped from an average of 2.5 since 1989 to approximately 1.3 in 2023, which is much lower than the population replacement level of 2.1. Meanwhile, the proportion of the population aged 65 and above has increased from 7% in 1990 to approximately 15% by 2025. This trend of “low birth rate + population aging” is eroding the size of the labor force, increasing the burden on social security, and compressing the space for public finance.
Why was it listed as a comprehensive issue this time?
The APEC Secretariat pointed out in its press release that, as the total population is expected to start decreasing in 2035, economies in the region are facing the triple pressure of “depletion of labor supply, decline in productivity, and damage to fiscal sustainability”. This has prompted the APEC governance to recognize that the issue of population structure is no longer an internal matter of a single country, but a structural risk affecting regional trade, supply chains, digital transformation, and the elderly care industry.
Firstly, in the past, APEC focused on themes such as tariff reduction, investment facilitation, digital technology, and climate change. However, elevating “demographic change” to a comprehensive issue reflects the consensus among member economies on the dual challenges of “weakening growth momentum” and “rising financial burden”. The PSU report indicates that as the elderly dependency ratio and the total dependency ratio rise, the growth potential and innovation capacity of member economies may be significantly restricted.
Secondly, against the backdrop of globalization and technological transformation, the impact of changes in population structure on labor force participation, skill demands, industrial upgrading, and the social security system is accelerating and converging. This year, APEC has placed it on par with the topic of artificial intelligence, indicating that population issues have become a core component of the “sustainable growth model”. According to the latest news reports, some member economies have begun to alleviate the impact of aging through technological innovation and immigration policies. For instance, South Korea and Japan are accelerating the introduction of automated elderly care services and cross-border labor cooperation projects.
Thirdly, in the face of the significant differentiation in population trends among regions – economies in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Americas show huge differences in population growth, mobility, and the speed of aging – APEC believes that it is difficult for individual countries to achieve economies of scale by addressing these issues alone. It is necessary to enhance cooperation at the regional level, share policy experiences, and coordinate institutional frameworks. Therefore, APEC has proposed the “Collaborative Framework on Demographic Change” to integrate labor force participation, elderly services, children and family policies, and reforms of the insurance and pension systems.
Potential impacts and challenges
Incorporating population issues into the comprehensive agenda means that member economies may allocate more resources in the coming decades to: encouraging women’s labor force participation, raising the retirement age, strengthening skills training and re-education, reforming the public pension system, and developing the silver economy and health industry. PSU pointed out that these “structural solutions” cannot rely on short-term subsidies but require long-term investment and institutional innovation.
However, treating the issue of population structure as a regional topic also brings challenges. On the one hand, population policies are highly sensitive and closely intertwined with family, culture, fertility, immigration, and other factors, with a strong sense of national sovereignty. It is rather difficult to formulate a regional consensus or joint procedures. On the other hand, economies vary significantly in terms of population trends, social welfare foundations, financial conditions, and labor market structures. How to design a policy framework that is both flexible and coordinated is a major challenge for APEC.
Conclusion
Under the dual pressures of regional economic growth and social structure, APEC has for the first time elevated “addressing demographic changes” to a comprehensive issue, highlighting the urgency and universality of this topic. From low birth rates, an aging population, shrinking labor force to hidden concerns over innovation capacity and fiscal sustainability, population structure is becoming an important variable that either supports or weakens the growth poles in the Asia-Pacific region. In the coming years, whether APEC can transform these structural challenges into growth opportunities through regional cooperation will largely determine the direction of the region’s future economic and social development.
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