This is an expanded version of comments on the future of the demography of aging at an invited session of the 2008 annual meeting of the Population Association of America. In an introduction, John Haaga offers reasons for a revival of interest in population aging, including greater realization...

Unique data from a 1998 healthy longevity baseline survey provide demographic, socio-economic, and health characteristics of the oldest old, aged 80-105, in China. This subpopu-lation is growing rapidly and is likely to need extensive social and health services. A large majority of Chinese...

Mortality data for 30 mostly developed countries available in the Kannisto-Thatcher Database on Old-Age Mortality (KTDB) are drawn on to assess the pace of decline in death rates at ages 80 years and above. As of 2004 this database recorded 37 million persons at these ages, including 130,000...