We have become so accustomed to thinking about China as an almost unstoppable economic juggernaut that we have overlooked one of the most basic ways China’s ascent could be arrested: the speed with which it will grow old. In 2012, 10 percent of China’s population was 60 or older; by 2050, the percentage will triple. In absolute numbers, that’s an increase from 128 million to 431 million. Globally, this will make China the country with the largest elderly population by far. Estimates are that by 2040 China will have more dementia patients than exist in the rest of the developed world—this in a country in which the very word in Mandarin for dementia is stigmatized. China needs solutions to its aging problem, and fast.
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