Introduction: The future demographic scenario for Sri Lanka raises many critical issues and challenges. Sri Lanka faces a period of demographic ageing, in which all the indicators of this ageing process will progress upwards at a much faster rate than experienced elsewhere in the developed world. While many Asian countries are in the same situation of facing historically rapid rates of population ageing, Sri Lanka, because of its unusual success in the health sector, will experience one of the most rapid transitions to an aged population. Moreover, Sri Lanka will experience this transition at a much lower level of income and economic development than others. Sri Lanka faces the same rapid rate of population ageing as Japan or South Korea, but without the advantages that rapid economic development brings to these countries.