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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 of plasticity in aging trajectories at both individual and societal levels. Linda Martin proposes that population scientists working in aging emulate those studying fertility and family planning in previous decades, learning from interventions (in this case, aimed at increasing retirement savings and reducing disability at older ages). Changes in family structure will increasingly affect new cohorts of the elderly, and Linda Waite speculates on the ways in which changes in the economy, medicine, and the legal environment could affect the social context for aging. Research on mortality at older ages is "alive and well" asserts James Vaupel, who sets out six large questions on mortality trends and differentials over time and across species. Lastly, Wolfgang Lutz expands the scope of projections, showing the considerable uncertainty about the timing and pace of population aging in the developing world and the effects on future elderly of the increases in educational attainment in much of the world during the second half of the twentieth century.

Much of the world is aging rapidly. Both the number and proportion of people aged 65 years and older are increasing, although at different rates in different parts of the world. The number of older adults has risen more than threefold since 1950, from approximately 130 million to 419 million in 2000, with the elderly share of the population increasing from 4 percent to 7 percent during that period. In the United States, those aged 65 and older currently make up about 13 percent of the population. The US Census Bureau (2004) projects that in 25 years this proportion will exceed 20 percent. Over the next 50 years the United States will undergo a profound transformation, becoming a mature nation in which one citizen in five is 65 or older. (Now, one person in eight is that old.) The dramatic increases to come in the older population will exert powerful pressures on health care delivery systems, on programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Supplemental Security Income that provide financial support, and on social institutions such as the family that provide instrumental, financial, and emotional support for the elderly.