Aging in East Asia: New Findings on Retirement, Health, and Well-Being
Wei‐Jun Jean Yeung, Yeonjin Lee
Abstract
Scholarly attention to aging in East Asia has flourished in recent years. Currently, East Asia accounts for slightly more than one-fifth of the world’s total population and plays a pivotal role in global socioeconomic development. The age 65+ population in East Asia has grown rapidly over the past half-century, due to declining fertility rates and lengthened life expectancy since the 1950s. Population aging is exerting enormous pressure on the institutions of family, health care, labor markets, and other socioeconomic systems (Feng et al., 2019; Raymo et al., 2015). It is against this backdrop that we highlight several recent contributions published in Journal of Gerontology: Social Sciences; three in recent issues (Lee & Yeung, 2021; Minagawa & Saito, 2021; Nakagawa & Hülür, 2021), and two in this special virtual collection (Kim et al., 2021; Luo et al., 2021). Countries and...