the nature of labor demand is changing globally, affecting demand for mature workers, and will also impact labor markets in L/MICs, albeit to a varying degree. Aging can itself generate demand for products and services, thus generating jobs in the so-called “silver economy.”

**The paper provides a review of key data and relevant literature on productive longevity.** The policy review summarizes evidence based primarily on search based on policy areas (social security, lifelong learning, etc.) coupled with keywords including “old*” or “old age”, “senior*”, and “elder*”, and snowballing from identified studies. The policy agenda focusing on productive longevity is relatively recent and the evidence on policy effectiveness limited, especially for L/MICs. In identifying relevant literature, we have given priority to studies based on rigorous experimental approaches, but the review includes other quantitative and qualitative research, from academic journals as well as gray literature, including reports and studies from international organizations such as the World Bank or the OECD. Where evidence for mature workers in L/MICS is scarce, we focus on the impact of relevant interventions for other groups that face similar constraints (e.g. youth, or women), or for HICs. The paper does not use a precise age cut-off to identify mature workers. Typically, the interventions we look at would be relevant for age group 55+ and above, but may differ depending on the age group involved.

**The remainder of the paper is organized as follows:** Section 2 describes the labor policy agenda for aging, highlighting the commonalities and diversity of policy needs and options between HICs and L/MICs as well as within L/MICs. Section 3 presents some stylized facts regarding the nature of work for older adults. Section 4 presents a conceptual framework around the main constraints to longer productive working lives. Based on this framework, section 5 looks at the available evidence on what works, drawing where possible on evidence from LICs and MICs. The final section concludes with some meta-lessons and points to the important research agenda that lies ahead.

# 2. A global policy agenda for aging

**Aging is a global phenomenon, and all countries will need to consider how to optimize policy to**

**address the impact of older populations** . Old-age dependency ratios are already high in many L/MICs (particularly in East Asia and Eastern and Central Europe) and increasing rapidly in others (Latin America and the Middle East and North Africa). The share of persons above 65 years of age reaches 18 percent both in rich East Asian countries and in the OECD but is below 5 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia. (Figure 1). In most of Latin America and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, fertility rates have already dropped below replacement levels, which means that the population will also be shrinking. Whereas most countries in South Asia and SubSaharan Africa still have relatively young populations, old-age populations are increasing rapidly in absolute numbers, and many Southeast Asian countries have already undergone a significant demographic transition in a very short period. Based on current trends, fertility rates will be below replacement levels in almost all Asian countries within 20 years.<sup>11</sup> Many of these countries risk experiencing a slowdown in growth and thus “getting old before getting rich.” As the demographic window of opportunity is closing, sustaining welfare levels will require significant reforms, also in countries where social protection and skills-development systems are still developing.

> 11 https://www.csis.org/analysis/will-many-developing-countries-get-old-they-get-rich

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