Monitoring healthy ageing for the next decade: South Korea’s perspective

South Korea is the fastest ageing country among OECD countries. Unlike the older generation growing up in the aftermath of the Korean war, the first and second baby boomer generations have heightened expectations regarding public services. In addition to the demand in higher quality of both social and health services by these newer older population, there is a concomitant increased quantitative demand. It is imperative that Korea reimagines their health, social welfare and economic policies to reflect the rapidly changing needs of such generations. One way to do this is to mainstream and continually monitor healthy ageing in all aspects of future policies. In 2021, the Korean Longitudinal Healthy Aging Study was launched in this context, to better understand the needs of the new-older age generation and to produce evidence to support formulation of better tailored policies that could promote healthy ageing. However, Korea is only in its early stage in developing a monitoring system that looks into the performance level of policies that support healthy ageing. As a country that is preparing for such rapid demographic transition and has already commenced developing its healthy ageing indicators, it will be important to assess and monitor uniformly the level of healthy ageing from the framework perspective of WHO. Korea welcomes WHO’s development of an internationally applicable M&E framework for healthy ageing. We hope that WHO’s M&E framework on healthy ageing will help Korea align to the international standards in its journey through the UN Decade of Healthy Ageing 2021–2030 and beyond.