BCP Education & Psychology ESS 2022 Volume 7 (2022) 74 Analysis and Research on Population Aging Benjamin Zhao Shanghai united international school Hongqiao Campus, Shanghai, China Abstract. In the modern era, there are quite a few problems from local to international, and leaders all over the world have been actively solving this situation. When human beings pay close attention to some problems, others are underestimated. One is aging. Although this is a new dilemma, it can lead to severe consequences. Aging has happened in various places, mainly in developed countries and regions, such as East Asia and Europe. To address this issue, this paper is divided into three parts, each of which discusses an aging issue: the loss of labor forces, the increase in life expectancy, and the lonely death. Keywords: Population Aging; Social Responsibility; Social Issues. 1. Introduction Population is one of the most dominant global social issues and is at the heart of many contemporary social problems. According to the United Nations, by 2050, the world population will reach 9-10 billion, of which 2 billion will be over 60 years old and 1.5 billion will be over 65 years old by 2050, which will soon exceed the number of children under 5 years old; on the other hand, with the advancement of science and technology and the improvement of medical care, the life expectancy of the world population is increasing, and this situation On the other hand, with the advancement of technology and medical care, the life expectancy of the world's population is increasing, and in this situation, many people must re-plan their retirement plans or postpone their retirement or even not retire in order to maintain a stable income. Controlling population growth is urgent, and the issue of aging is the most prominent of the population issues. For society, a rapidly expanding aging population is not an asset, but rather a heavy financial burden, such as the more than $600 billion spent globally each year on treating Alzheimer's disease. In a recent analysis entitled "Global Aging 2010," Standard & Poor's noted, "The fact that the world's population is aging at an irreversible rate will be the defining factor in outlining the future health of national economies, and no other force compares to it." The report warns that many countries are not prepared to cover the pension and health care costs of so many future retirees; and that if these governments fail to make deep reforms in their input policies for their older populations in the coming decades, the level of national indebtedness, which continues to grow, will increase significantly. At present, the countries with deeper population aging in the world include Japan, Italy and Germany, who’s up to 25% or more, while the elderly population over 65 years old in China accounts for 7% of the total population. According to this standard, China has entered the aging society. It is urgent to control the problem of population aging, which is of great significance to both social and economic stability and sustainable development. 2. The Loss of Labor Forces This is a very important issue of aging, which is especially troubling people all over the world. In an aging society, more and more individuals retire, and as a result, fewer suitable people will engage in labor activities In the Chinese society, the population structure had been altered, with a lower fertility rate and more current labor force retirement. In the 1950s, the main population was located around 0-4 years old. However, in 2019, the main population has risen to 30-34 years old, and the second major population is between 45-49 years old. Moreover, the population group of 0-4 years old has decreased slightly. According to this trend, the main population group is expected to be 60-65 years old in 2050. With the decrease of the appropriate labor force, it will also decline. Therefore, productivity will weaken and affect the supply chain, resulting in a supply shortage. BCP Education & Psychology ESS 2022 Volume 7 (2022) 75 Perhaps many scholars disagree with this view. They believe that the decline of the labor force will bring about the progress of technology, mechanization, and artificial intelligence, and make up for the labor shortage problem. On the contrary, the efficiency will be improved. However, most industries still need a large amount of labor force to maintain before entering full artificial intelligence. If we are short of labor, but technology does not fully realize this, our labor shortage will cause a crisis in the supply chain. According to CNN (2015), “China’s working-age population is estimated to lose 90 million workers over the next few decades, according to the World Bank. The workforce is expected to shrink by 10% between 2010 to 2040, an issue exacerbated by a rapidly aging society.” For example, recent cases show that labor shortages cause a shortage of materials. Affected by factors such as leaving the European Union and COVID-19 epidemic, there is a severe shortage of truck drivers in the UK. According to the estimate of the British Road Transport Association, there is a shortage of about 100,000 truck drivers in the UK. The British Retail Consortium said that many commodity prices would be affected if truck drivers could not replenish in time. Furthermore, between 1942 and 1945, 15 million men and women were drafted into the military, which counted for 20% of the workforce. This evoked a supply shortage of many civil goods, such as canned food, rubber, and even paper. According to “living history farm”, farmers were asked to produce much more food with fewer and fewer workers as the war progressed. More and more young men were being drafted or enlisted in the military. The farm labor shortage quickly became severe, especially for fruit and vegetable producers who relied on migratory hand labor. 3. Increase in Life Expectancy In an aging society, the life expectancy of residents increases. Therefore, it will require more pensions and savings to maintain their living until they die, causing more stress on the social economy. This is the only fundamental factor, and the risk of diseases and other health problems among the elderly is also higher, which will be paid for by the insurance and cause greater stress on government’s finances. This pressure will be transferred to the next generation. For example, to ensure the stable operation of old-age pensions, more young laborers need to participate in the insurance system to maintain the stable operation of pension insurance. However, if the life expectancy of the elderly continues to increase and the number of young people continues to decrease, then the young people have to delay their retirement. This is also a common policy used by many aging countries, but the problem of inequity is underestimated. It was predicted that there would be a total of 400 trillion deficit in the savings for people retiring due to the increase in lifespan. This is an inevitable problem in the process of social aging. As the proportion of the elderly in the population increases, the labor force decreases. As a result, the economic income of more people will fall on the shoulders of fewer people. For example, 1/3 of Japan’s population is over 65 years old (elderly population), and it is expected that the country's labor force will decrease by 8 million by 2030. In April 2021, the Japanese government officially implemented the “Revised Employment Security Law for Senior Citizens”, raising the retirement age from 65 to 70. However, the harm caused by this policy at the social level is significant. Delaying retirement will lead to a lack of vitality for the whole society. Many people have worked for decades, but they have to retired at an older age because of the policy. Their negative emotions can rise dramatically, which brings them to work. 4. Humanitarian Issues: Lonely Death Lonely death, a phenomenon caused by the severity of aging, is also one of the underestimated threats. As aging occurs in a society, the elders and its population will have fewer family members due to a lower birth rate. One of the phenomena is the lonely death, especially severe in Japan and East Asia. Due to the limited number of their descendants and children, they are not monitored BCP Education & Psychology ESS 2022 Volume 7 (2022) 76 carefully, which makes it impossible for anyone to give help or take any action. When they die, they often die in their government apartments. This is a huge issue since elders die without even noticing their corpse’s decay. In Japan, there are an average of 30000 lonely death cases annually. Japan entered an aging society in 1990, with 11.7% of elders (according to the UN, any country with more than 10% of elders is classified as an aging society). In 2010, Japan started to pay attention to a lonely death. The Japanese government had established campaigns to help inform about kodokushi and increase its awareness of it. In Japan in 2017, there were still around 45000 lonely death cases. Another example is South Korea. It entered an aging society in 2000. In South Korea, it is estimated that academic experts and governments also started paying attention to the problem in the 2010s. The local government of Seoul formulated a policy that 10 people from each district will visit the homes for the elderly who are alone and widowed every week to monitor their situation. However, in 2015, there were still 1245 cases in South Korea. Looking at these two examples, we can tell that lonely death thrives very fast, but the preparation for this problem will help reduce it. For instance, the South Korean government’s policies are more direct than the Japanese government, resulting in fewer cases. In conclusion, countries worldwide should be concerned about this problem since South Korea and Japan are two examples that are experiencing this severe condition. 5. What are the Effects of an Aging Population on us? First of all, it increases the pressure on the family. Nowadays, most of the families are two young adults who need to support four elderly people and one child, which is a great pressure. Secondly, it increases the risk of various diseases, the elderly are a variety of acute and chronic diseases, on the one hand, because of their own immune situation is not good, easy to be invaded by external pathogenic bacteria and viruses, causing inflammation; on the other hand, many elderly health awareness is not strong, in the young did not do a good job of body protection, leaving a "hidden danger" to health "On the other hand, many elderly people do not have a strong awareness of health care, when they are young, they do not do a good job of protecting their bodies, leaving "hidden dangers" to their health. Finally, it increases the burden on society and the country. In order to ease the burden of the aging population on families, China has been investing a lot of money in medical care and daily health care for the elderly since a long time ago, but even so, there are still many aspects of daily protection and disease treatment for the elderly that need to be strengthened. If the aging of the population continues to increase, it will be a big burden for the society and the country. Everyone wants to ensure their quality of life and live a longer and healthier life, however, the aging of the population is becoming more and more serious, although there is no way for us personally to stop the aging, but it is still possible to do a good job of daily disease prevention and health care, and not to increase the burden on the family and society, and we would like to advise all the middle-aged and elderly people to ensure their health is the primary goal, and it is important to do a good job of daily It is important to maintain good health. References [1] Baidu Baike. 2022. [online] The birth population is about to fall below 10 million! Five years later, China’s total population is negative: can the pension still be paid?. Available at: [Accessed June 28th, 2022]. [2] Baidu Baike. 2022. [online] Yan, S. By 2040, China will lose 90 million workers. Available at: [Accessed June 28th, 2022]. [3] Baidu Baike. 2022. [online] How serious is the shortage of truck drivers?. Available at: [Accessed June 28th, 2022]. BCP Education & Psychology ESS 2022 Volume 7 (2022) 77 [4] Baidu Baike. 2022. [online] There was a shortage of farm labor during World War II. from Available at: [Accessed June 28th, 2022]. [5] Baidu Baike. 2022. [online] Pension time bomb: $400 trillion in 2050. (2018). Available at: < https://www.visualcapital.com/pension-time-bomb-400-trillion -2050/> [Accessed June 28th, 2022]. [6] Baidu Baike. 2022. [online] Managed by kodokushi. Japan’s lonely death and its influence on community autonomy. (2022). Available at: [Accessed June 28th, 2022]. [7] Baidu Baike. 2022. [online] Japan’s aging-Wikipedia. Available at: [Accessed June 28th, 2022]. [8] Baidu Baike. 2022. [online] Soon after; Anonymous (anonymous) (2022). Available at: [Accessed June 28th, 2022]. [9] Baidu Baike. 2022. [online] The number of lonely deaths in South Korea has increased, and there is no proper funeral – Orange County Regis. (2022) Available at: [Accessed June 28th, 2022].