Population Ageing Policy Responses and Options to Extend Retirement Coverage Case Study of Sri Lanka

Population ageing is a process no longer confined to industrialized countries. Demographers expect mostof the growth of the world’s elderly population to occur in developing countries over the next 50 years.A distinctive feature of ageing in these countries, likely to present additional developmental challenges,is the rapidity of the ageing process anticipated. Many less advanced economies are ageing at a rate muchfaster than that witnessed by OECD economies, but also at a much earlier stage of economic development,placing them at a greater disadvantage in terms of their ability to respond to ageing pressures. Not onlywill the political timeframe available to formulate and implement policy responses be shorter, but theavailability of financial, institutional and technical resources and capacities to respond to ageing pressuresare currently more limited.