Ageing in the Asia Pacific: Interdisciplinary and Comparative Perspectives

In the coming decades, challenges and risks associated with rapid population ageing will be paramount in Asia-Pacific. Examining key trends, dilemmas and developments with reference to specific nations, the book draws conclusions and policy recommendations that apply to Asia-Pacific as a whole. Individual chapters focus on the impact of population ageing, along with urbanization and industrialization, on the lives of people in the region. The book shows how leaders in Asia-Pacific – political, community and others – need to respond to changes in family and social structures, disease pathology, gender roles, income security, the care of older citizens and the provision of social and health welfare.

Thomas R. Klassen is Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration at York University in Toronto, Canada. He has published widely in income security and retirement in Asia and North America. He is co-editor, among other books, of the Routledge Handbook of Global Public Policy and Administration (2017) and author of Retirement in Canada (2013).

Masa Higo is Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, Japan. His research focuses on retirement reforms from a global perspective. He is co-editor of Retirement in Japan and South Korea: The past, the present and the future of mandatory retirement (Routledge 2015).

Nopraenue S. Dhirathiti is Associate Professor and Acting Vice President for International Relations and Corporate Social Communication at Mahidol University, Thailand. Her current research interests are lifelong learning policy for the elderly people, co-production of public services and the elderly housing.

Theresa W. Devasahayam is Associate Lecturer at Singapore University of Social Sciences where she teaches courses on gender, ethnicity and diversity, medical sociology and Southeast Asian Societies. She has conducted extensive research and published widely on women’s health, ageing, transnational labour migration, women and food security, and women’s political participation. She has a PhD in Anthropology with a concentration in feminist studies from Syracuse University, New York, US.