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Africa and Asia are the two most populous continents in the world and are projected to increase further in the near future and this puts the governments under great stress in terms of increased public expenditure and dealing with a low revenue generation. Thus, the purpose of this study is to assess the influence of population age structure on the size of government expenditure in Africa and Asia covering the period 1990–2018.

The study employed panel fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) estimation in estimating the relevant relationship between the variables in the model.

The key findings revealed that the major population age structures that influence the size of government expenditure in Africa are population aged 0–14 years and population aged 15–64 years, while that of Asia are population aged 15–64 years and population aged 65 years and above. The findings provided strong support for the Population Reference Bureau report (2019) that countries in Africa are home to some of the world's youngest population, that is, those aged 15 years or below, while Asia is home to some of the world's oldest population, that is, those aged 65 years and above.

While generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation is beneficial in the presence of endogeneity, it is only designed for situations with a small time period (T) and a large number of cross sections (N). Hence, the estimation technique was limited only to FMOLS as the number of the cross sections or countries which is ten for Africa and ten for Asia is lower than the time period which is 29 years (1990–2018).

Empirical literature investigating the influence of population age structure on the size of government expenditure has focussed mainly on one aspect of the population age structure and government expenditure, which is the influence of ageing population on government expenditure on health. Hence, this study focussed on assessing the influence of population age structure on the size of government expenditure. The study is unique as it compared the two most populous continents in the world, which are Africa and Asia to determine which of the population age structures have the most significant influence on the size of government expenditure.

This paper aims to provide an invaluable insight into long‐term forecasting of demand for aged care facilities. This will ensure the provision of adequate supply by government bodies, stakeholders and developers in order to meet the anticipated level of demand, without creating an over‐supply or an under‐supply scenario.

Using an innovative approach, different data sources were collectively used to forecast separate individual supply and demand levels, which were then examined together in order to measure the difference between the two variables between 2009‐2020. A case study approach was used for Victoria, Australia.

The paper finds that, although there is excess supply between 2009‐2010 and 2019‐2020, the period between 2010 and 2019 will experience an under‐supply period which cannot be easily rectified over the short term.

The case study was limited to residential care facilities in Victoria, Australia, although some countries have substantially different age profiles and accommodation supply for older residents. Forecasts are based on information sources from various data suppliers and collectively analysed.

The results are also of direct interest to place managers and planning authorities who are charged with providing medium‐ and long‐term visions and plans for specific locations. This type of research is essential when planning for the eventual aging of the population, where the methodology can be replicated in different areas. Most importantly, this research approach provides a solid basis for decisions regarding the supply of residential aged care facilities as opposed to a simple estimate.

The study adopted a unique approach to analysing the individual supply and demand components for aged care facilities over the long term. This approach is able to accurately determine when there will be an under‐supply or over‐supply situation and thus provide the opportunity to address the difference before it occurs. This will allow informed decisions about planning aged care facilities in the future to be made as required.

China's population aging is gradually deepening and needs to be actively addressed. The purpose of this paper is to construct a novel model for analyzing the population aging.

To analyze the aging status of a region, this study has considered three major indicators: total population, aged population and the proportion of the aged population. Additionally, the authors have developed a novel grey population prediction model that incorporates the fractional-order accumulation operator and Gompertz model (GM). By combining these techniques, the authors' model provides a comprehensive and accurate prediction of population aging trends in Jiangsu Province. This research methodology has the potential to contribute to the development of effective policy solutions to address the challenges posed by the population aging.

The fractional-order discrete grey GM is suitable for predicting the aging population and has good performance. The population aging of Jiangsu Province will continue to deepen in the next few years.

The proposed model can be used to predict and analyze aging differences in Jiangsu Province. Based on the prediction and analysis results, identified some corresponding countermeasures are suggested to address the challenges of Jiangsu's future aging problem.

The fractional-order discrete grey GM is firstly proposed in this paper and this model is a novel grey population prediction model with good performance.

This paper analyses the risks of the elderly and needs for aged care in China as a major social problem faced by the Chinese government in the 21st century, suggests the development of aged care accounting as a tool of providing information for policy‐makers, and outlines a general framework for such a development. The role of accounting in addressing aged care issues is recognised with a view to expanding social and demographic dimensions of accounting. Social and economic developments in China have increased people’s life expectancy which is leading to rapid population ageing. Meanwhile, the economic reform has largely dismantled the infrastructure of the traditional socialist care system. Consequently, there is growing concern about the risk and financing of aged care. The “one couple with one child” policy in China has also brought up the issue whether China will be able to afford the enormous amount of cost that aged care needs in the 21st century. The emergence of accounting for aged care is likely to provide information which can be used to address these demographic issues.

This publication aims to document the most relevant features of the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in 23 African and six Arab countries. The purpose of this paper is to provide a simple presentation of current levels; the main differences, according to background characteristics; and observed trends in the last 10-15 years. Considering past, current and future demographic dynamics helps identify possible scenarios for elimination.

Data on FGM have been collected through Demographic Health Surveys since 1990, with about 50 surveys conducted in 23 countries with FGM concentrations, and through Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys since 2000, with about 31 surveys conducted in 18 countries with prevalent FGM. Reliable data on the practice are now available for all African countries where the practice is concentrated, plus Iraq and Yemen. Statistical information is currently not available for countries where FGM has been newly identified, such as India and Indonesia.

Approximately 130 million girls have undergone FGM in countries where the practice remains prevalent. If programmatic interventions and resources remain the same or decline, over 15.2 million girls will be subject to FGM. However if the 17 target countries attain their respective annual rates of reduction, four million girls will have been protected from FGM. Demographic analysis of FGM demonstrates that it is a practice that occurs within specific socio-cultural parameters, such as place of residence, and reproductive health and status. Interventions focusing on abandonment should take into consideration gender inequalities, how manifest, exacerbating high fertility and very young populations.

Gender equality has a catalytic effect on the achievement of inclusive and progressive human development, good governance, sustained peace, and harmonious dynamics between environments and human populations – all of which are at the centre of sustainable development and human rights.

The case studies focusing on Burkina Faso and Guinea show that characteristics such as the mother’s educational level and whether or not she experienced FGM, religious background and ethnicity provide valuable information in determining who is subject to FGM and defining the milieu in which they live. This information corroborates other studies finding that ethnic and religious background are strong determinants.

Presented analysis strongly highlights the importance of data in understanding the context within which FGM programmes operate, especially those that target local communities. Djibouti, with a rapidly growing urban population, should focus on prevention programmes in cities. A highly rural country such as Guinea-Bissau will take a different approach, as only a few ethnic groups practice FGM.

This is one of the first attempts to analyse and have a better understanding of the demographic, social and economic context of the practice. It aims to highlight the population and development issues surrounding the social norms of FGM.

Poverty numbers have decreased in the United States over the past few decades but these statistics tend to mask trends for different demographic groups. Aged women living alone make up 95 per cent of non‐family households, and 47 per cent of these women had annual incomes of less than $10,000 and most were living at the poverty threshold in 1989. Concern about poverty among the aged is addressed from two perspectives. First, changes in the magnitude, characteristics and incidence of poverty among the aged population are reviewed. Secondly, analytical models of the severity of poverty are presented and these models are used to describe techniques that may be employed in attempting to alleviate poverty in one category of the aged poor where it seems most acute and most intractable, i.e. aged women living alone. Three poverty models are presented: (1) concentrating economic aid to those just below the poverty threshold and reducing numbers; (2) concentrating aid to those in deepest need; and (3) a sliding scale. The modified welfare ratio model showed that concentrating economic aid to the aged poor in deepest need (furthest from the poverty threshold) yields greater social and economic benefits.

Aging in Japan is advancing faster than in other major developed nations, and this is expected to have substantial effects on the country’s economic systems, including its social security system. What kind of effect will the falling birth rate, aging society and declining population have on the real estate market? Will the often mentioned real estate price asset meltdown really occur? The purpose of this paper is to address these questions by investigating how much demographic factors affected real estate prices in Japan and the USA.

The authors use regional panel data for Japan and the USA real estate prices and estimate the effects of demographic factors, such as dependency ratio, i.e. the ratio of population aged 65+ to population aged 20-64. For Japan, as no region-by-region quality-adjusted housing price indexes covering the entire country exist, data are constructed by conducting quality adjustment using hedonic regression.

Both in Japan and the USA, real estate prices in a region are inversely correlated with the old age dependency ratio in that region, and positively correlated with the total number of population in that region. The demographic factor had a greater impact on real estate prices in Japan than in the USA. For Japan, it was also found that demographic impact on land prices will be −2.4 per cent per year in 2012-2040, while it was −3.7 per cent per year in 1976-2010, suggesting that aging will continue to have downward pressure on land prices over the next 30 years, although the demographic impact will be slightly smaller than it was in 1976-2010, as the old age dependency ratio will not increase as much as it did before.

Japan’s regional panel data are newly constructed based on a hedonic approach. Analyzing the effect of dependency ratio for Japan and the USA panel data is a new challenge. Forecasting future impact of demographic factor on Japan’s land prices based on the population forecast is a new challenge.

The USA has a rapidly aging prison population that, combined with their poorer health and living conditions, is at extreme risk for COVID-19. The purpose of this paper is to compare COVID-19 mortality trends in the US prison population and the general population to see how mortality risk changed over the course of the pandemic. The authors first provide a national overview of trends in COVID-19 mortality; then, the authors assess COVID-19 deaths among older populations using more detailed data from one US state.

The authors used multiple publicly available data sets (e.g. Centers for Disease Control and prevention, COVID Prison Project) and indirect and direct standardization to estimate standardized mortality rates covering the period from April 2020 to June 2021 for the US and for the State of Texas.

While 921 COVID-19-related deaths among people in US prisons were expected as of June 5, 2021, 2,664 were observed, corresponding to a standardized mortality ratio of 2.89 (95%CI 2.78, 3.00). The observed number of COVID-19-related deaths exceeded the expected number of COVID-19-related deaths among people in prison for most of the pandemic, with a substantially widening gap leading to a plateau about four weeks after the COVID-19 vaccine was introduced in the USA. In the state population, the older population in prison is dying at younger ages compared with the general population, with the highest percentage of deaths among people aged 50–64 years.

People who are incarcerated are dying of COVID-19 at a rate that far outpaces the general population and are dying at younger ages.

This descriptive analysis serves as a first step in understanding the dynamic trends in COVID-19 mortality and the association between age and COVID-19 death in US prisons.

This study aims to examine the relation between population composition and financial market variables in post-war Japan.

Cointegration and Granger causality tests are applied to annual data for the period 1948-2015.

Accounting for nonstationarity, this study finds long-run equilibrium relations between real financial price (stock and house) indices and the proportion of population in the prime earning (45-64) or retirement (65+) age. Granger causality tests that account for possibly nonstationary variables find some evidence of dynamic causation running from the 45-64 cohort to the real financial price indices. No such evidence is found for the 65+ cohort.

This study complements the existing literature primarily based on US data with analysis of Japanese data that has some unique population composition features.