Growing Pains: Is Latin America Prepared for Population Aging?

Author/Editor:

Lorenzo U Figliuoli ; Valentina Flamini ; Misael Galdamez ; Frederic Lambert ; Mike Li ; Bogdan Lissovolik ; Rosalind Mowatt ; Jaume Puig ; Alexander D Klemm ; Mauricio Soto ; Saji Thomas ; Christoph Freudenberg ; Anna Orthofer

Publication Date:

April 5, 2018

Electronic Access:

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Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary:

This paper estimates the fiscal costs of population aging in Latin America and provides policy recommendations on reforms needed to make these costs manageable. Although Latin American societies are still younger than most advanced economies, like other emerging markets the region is already in a process of population aging that is expected to accelerate in the remainder of the century. This will directly affect fiscal sustainability by putting pressure on public pension and health care systems in the region that are already more burdened than, for example, in emerging Asia, a region with a similar demographic structure. A stylized cross-country exercise, drawing on demographic projections from the United Nations and methodologies developed by the IMF to derive public spending projections, is used to quantify long-term fiscal gaps generated by population aging in 18 Latin American countries. Several aspects of current pensions and health care systems in Latin Amer-ica make the region’s long-term fiscal positions particularly vulnerable to population aging.

Series:

Departmental Paper No. 2018/005

Subject:

English

Publication Date:

April 5, 2018

ISBN/ISSN:

9781484326107/2616-5333

Stock No:

GPLAPPAEA

Pages:

195

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