There may actually be a “demographic bonus” in a dwindling population, according to experts. “As the size of the actual labor force grows, fewer people depend on it. This is not yet the case in Japan, which faces an increasingly onerous demographic debt,” says Toru Suzuki of the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research.

The population patterns in most countries in the region are such that, in a matter of years, the size of the labor forces in those places will shrink and the number of people depending on them such as retirees and children will balloon.

Suzuki, however, adds that the demographic factor doesn’t have an immediate effect on an economy. “Demography works in the background of the economic trajectory,” he says.

In China the family-planning policy that encourages most families to have a single child has been successful but created other problems, the most significant being a relatively older population. Almost half of its people are over the age of 40. This means that at some point in the near future the workforce may be too small to support everybody.

Analysts and forecasters fear dangers will arise if the trend continues. For now, however, there appears to be progress in a number of areas – if progress is defined as healthier populations who are living longer.

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“Nobody is really prepared for these demographic shifts. One challenge created by an older population is the cost of healthcare. As you become older you are less able to look after yourself,” says Thomas Abraham, director of the public health communication program at Hong Kong University. “In terms of public health, the question is whether increases in population are met with greater access to health services,” he adds.

In the next 15 years, global fertility may drop to the replacement rate – the point at which populations stay flat. Workforces across the continent will likely begin to drop, and, as a result, people in Asia may work longer.

This will lead to a higher retirement age. Working to the age of 70 is a likely prospect for the current labor force, according to Deutsche Bank.

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According to WHO statistics, people now earn more and have easier access to healthcare, education, clean drinking water and vaccinations. More people across Asia now receive vaccines. Measles vaccination rates are 95 percent in the Western Pacific region and 76 percent in Southeast Asia, up from 85 percent and 58 percent in 2000 respectively.

These developments have a direct effect on the lifestyles of people in the region who are living longer and healthier lives. And in turn, these also have a positive effect on economies because healthier and more educated people are more productive.The irony, however, lies in the fact that healthy and longer lifespans presage a potential disaster. The indications are quite clear, even from affluent Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and Singapore.

William Gibson famously observed that the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed. The flip side of that observation is that the near future is just like the present, with added nuggets of weirdness embedded in it. About 90% of the near future (10-20 years out) *is* here today: the buildings, the cars, the clothing. This is because we don’t junk our entire fleet of automobiles every time a new model appears — change is incremental, and old stuff hangs around. In addition to the 90% that’s familiar, there will be another 9% that is new but not unexpected — cheaper, flatter TV screens, better cancer treatments, bigger airliners, cars with extra cup-holders. These are the things that are trivially predictable. Finally, if you go more than 5 years out, about 1% of the world will be utterly, incomprehensibly alien and unexpected. To a time traveller from 1994 to 2004, that would have been the internet (which suddenly detonated, and went from being a techie/academic/corporate nerd thing into a ubiquitous communications medium), or mobile phones (expensive yuppie business tool to ubiquitous pocket lint).