Could nations invest in cognitive skills and become effectively younger?

Abstract

Countries around the world are faced with inevitable demographic change and the phenomenon of ageing populations. Estimating the burden of aging across countries hinges on the availability of valid and comparable indicators. Demographic indicators like old-age dependency ratios and median ages are widely used to rank countries by age -- however, these are exclusively based on chronological age distributions. Based on such measures, the populations of Germany or Japan are much older than those of China or Mexico. Alternative aging measures include those based on subjective health and economic activity levels. However, these measures may be influenced by for instance cultural variation in revealing health problems or by business cycle fluctuations