Page 15 - AEI Insights 2020 - Vol. 6, Issue 1

Furuoka et al, 2020

businesses often lag behind male-owned enterprises in terms of size, productivity, and tend to
be less profitable, with limited potential for expansion. They operated mainly in services such
as catering, tailoring, beauty and food processing (OECD-ASEAN, 2017).

Targeted policies are crucial to drive further progress on women’s entrepreneurial activities
including to get better access to markets, finance sources, business support services as well as
th
integration of ICT tools in their business operations (OECD-ASEAN, 2017:19). The 4
Industrial Revolution will change the way of work and threatens the existence of most manual
jobs. Therefore, entrepreneurial activities are expected to be the key alternative in empowering
women in ASEAN.

Elderly workers in ASEAN

ASEAN countries are experiencing rapid population ageing where the percentage of older
people has increased. The increasing percentage of older people aged 60 and above shown in
Figure 5 shows that most of ASEAN countries will achieve the status of ageing nation by 2030
when 14% of their total population are people aged 60 and above.

Figure 5: Percentage of older people aged 60 and above in ASEAN Countries

Sources: United Nations Population Division (2019)

This demographic change has led to various consequences on the social, economic and
wellbeing of the society. The major repercussion of increasing ageing population on the labour
market is its impact on working population: the decline in the share of working age population
relative to children and older person. Based on the report by the World Bank, Thailand recorded
the highest decline in working age population compared to any other ASEAN countries (World
Bank, 2016). In Thailand, the working age population is expected to shrink by 11 percent as a
share of the total population between 2016 and 2040 declines from 49 million people to 40.5
million people. The shrinking working age population can be detrimental to the growth of a
country. For instance, the increase in the age group of 70-74 in Japan is associated with
decreases in the GDP of Japan (Oliver, 2015).

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