Note: This article covers policy reforms legislated in 2022, 2023 and 2024 in Asia and the Pacific. For additional information on reforms in selected countries of the Middle East, see Social security reforms in Arab countries in the Middle East (ISSA, 2024a).

The Asia-Pacific region is characterized by its diversity, encompassing a wide range of political and economic systems, income levels and demographic profiles. Despite this, policymakers across the region face many common challenges in developing and sustaining social security systems capable of delivering comprehensive protection across the life course.

As with other regions, challenges include sustainability, adequacy, and coverage of social security (ISSA, 2024b). These challenges are often interconnected, as policymakers seek to balance meeting today’s needs while preparing for those of tomorrow, in a context marked by demographic shifts, inequality, migration and gaps in social protection coverage.

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While these challenges affect all branches of social security, many recent reforms in Asia and the Pacific have focused on pensions. These reforms point to three major policy objectives across the region: adapting pension systems to population ageing, enhancing the adequacy of social protection in old age, and expanding coverage of social protection to new and hard-to-cover groups.

Responding to demographic shifts and related challenges for pension systems

In line with global trends, life expectancy is increasing in Asia and the Pacific, while fertility rates are falling or remaining low (Kaneda and Matuszak, 2024). Looking ahead, these trends will have a dramatic impact on the population structure of the region: according to UN population projections, people aged 65 and older will account for 18.8 per cent of the population in 2050, up from 10.2 per cent in 2024 (author’s calculation based on United Nations data; see United Nations, 2024). While the pace of this demographic transition varies across the region, it is occurring in almost all countries, even those with relatively younger populations (ADB, 2024), and the region is facing the most rapid population ageing in the world (ILO, 2024a).

Increasing longevity and related demographic shifts can generally be seen as an indicator of socioeconomic development gains in the region, including improvements in health care and living standards. At the same time, population ageing presents a central challenge for social security systems. Increasing life expectancy brings with it concerns about financial sustainability, as people live longer in retirement and the number of pensioners relative to contributors increases. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) projects that old-age support ratios in Asia and the Pacific  will more than halve by 2060 (OECD, 2022). Increased longevity and higher dependency  ratios will reduce the labour force, compounding the pressure on public budgets.

Concerns around population ageing have been one of the driving forces behind reforms to pension systems. Governments in the region have taken steps to promote the financial sustainability of pension systems through reforms that have raised pensionable ages, increased contribution rates and minimum qualifying periods, introduced incentives for continued workforce participation and tightened conditions for early retirement.