Thailand's "golden population" period is expected to end in 2025. The country is likely to become the first in Southeast Asia to have an aging population before it becomes prosperous. This is a warning for Vietnam.

If developing countries do not make breakthroughs during the golden population period, they will find it difficult to overcome the middle-income trap to become developed countries.

Although average life expectancy has increased, the number of cases of non-infectious disease among Vietnamese has risen, said Dr Nguyen Thi Kim Tien, head of the Department of Health Protection and Care of Central Officials.

Vietnam will enter the “elderly population structure” in 2026, which will last for 28 years until 2054, according to an in-depth study of the 2019 population and housing census.

Twenty percent of Vietnam’s population will be 60 years of age or older within the next 20 years, resulting in the country experiencing an “elderly population crisis”.

It takes Vietnam only 20 years to transform from 7% to 14% of the population aged 65 and over.

Vietnam now ranks second in the number of employees working in Japan, according to the latest statistics of Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Vietnamese workers in Japan topped 401,000 as of October 2019, an increase of 26.7 percent from a year earlier, adding up to the record of almost 1.66 million foreign workers in the country, data of the Japanese labour ministry show.

Vietnam should take advantage of the "golden population structure" period to avoid the middle income trap, said Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue.

ILO Director of the Department of Partnerships and Field Support, Rie Vejs-Kjeldgaard, talks to Việt Nam News about Vietnam’s efforts in ratifying ILO conventions.

JICA and WB on August 7 jointly launched a knowledge-sharing programme to assist policymakers in Vietnam with developing new models of care services for the elderly as Vietnam’s population is aging at a pace faster than any of its regional peers.