Social Protection for Older Persons: Social Pensions in Asia

The growing aging population in developing Asia and the Pacific has significant consequences for providing social protection to the elderly. Social protection in the region has historically been weak and fragmented, and has mainly supported small segments of the population in the formal sector. Many older people do not receive pension support and rely on their families and informal social networks for survival. Yet the support provided by such networks is becoming less dependable in the face of rapid urbanization and modernization.