**Globally, women’s life expectancy at birth exceeds that of men by nearly five years, and the gap persists into older ages** . The gender longevity gap is highest in Latin America, Europe, and Eastern and South-Eastern Asia. This gender gap suggests that productive aging policies need to pay specific attention to skills and labor market constraints for women, and health constraints for men.

**Figure 1: Demographic changes differ across regions, but aging is coming everywhere**

<!-- Start of picture text --> Share of 65+ in the population across % change in population 65+, 2019-2050<br>20 regions, 2020 250<br>18 200<br>16<br>14 150<br>12<br>100<br>10<br>8 50<br>6<br>4 0<br>2<br>% of population aged 65+ 0<br>% change in pop 65+ Oceania<br>Africa<br>Sub-Saharan Central and<br>Sub-Saharan Africa Middle East & North Africa South Asia East Asia & Pacific Europe & Central Asia OECD members Low income Middle income High income Northern Africa and Western Asia Southern Asia Latin America and the Caribbean Eastern and South-Eastern Asia Europe and Northern America<br><!-- End of picture text --> Source: World Development Indicators (left), UN 2019 (right).

**The priorities and space for reforms will differ between less and more advanced economies, reflecting different contexts of aging and productive work.** Most analysis and evidence on aging societies and the relationship with longer working lives is based on HICs. Much can be learned from these experiences, but there are important differences between less and more advanced economies that affect priorities as well as the available and desirable set of policy instruments that can support longer and more productive working lives. These include, _inter alia_ , labor market structure, access to social protection, human capital levels across generations, norms, and the technical capacity and political space for reform. Nevertheless, countries that are now building up their education, labor, and social protection systems can also learn not to repeat errors made by more advanced economies. The experience from HICs and some MICs shows that the cost of putting in place inadequate solutions can be substantial. Unsustainable pension systems or insufficient attention to skills development for older generations have long-term repercussions that can be very difficult (politically and technically) to undo. Poorer countries need to avoid costly mistakes, such as entrenching costly future pension payment contingencies in social protection design, or ignoring human capital investments, the effects of which will manifest themselves in the decades to come.

**The dual labor market structure of most L/MICs presents a particular dilemma for policy makers.** The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that, on average, about 70 percent of the employed workforce is informally employed in developing countries.<sup>12</sup> On the one hand, high informality and low-productivity work mean that policies focusing on formal workers and formal firms will be less effective in changing aggregate outcomes, despite promising evidence in some areas that policy can affect old-age productivity and employment decisions. On the other hand, many workers in

> 12 Based on statistics for 61 developing countries, from Elgin et al. 2021.

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