Can healthy ageing moderate the effects of population ageing on economic growth and health spending trends in Mongolia? A modelling study

BACKGROUND: Population ageing will accelerate rapidly in Mongolia in the coming decades. We explore whether this is likely to have deleterious effects on economic growth and health spending trends and whether any adverse consequences might be moderated by ensuring better health among the older population. METHODS: Fixed-effects models are used to estimate the relationship between the size of the older working-age population (55–69 years) and economic growth from 2020 to 2100 and to simulate how growth is modified by better health among the older working-age population, as measured by a 5% improvement in years lived with disability. We next use 2017 data on per capita health spending by age from the National Health Insurance Fund to project how population ageing will influence public health spending from 2020 to 2060 and how this relationship may change if the older population (≥ 60 years) ages in better or worse health than currently. RESULTS: The projected increase in the share of the population aged 55–69 years is associated with a 4.1% slowdown in per-person gross domestic product (GDP) growth between 2020 and 2050 and a 5.2% slowdown from 2020 to 2100. However, a 5% reduction in disability rates among the older population offsets these effects and adds around 0.2% to annual per-person GDP growth in 2020, rising to nearly 0.4% per year by 2080. Baseline projections indicate that population ageing will increase public health spending as a share of GDP by 1.35 percentage points from 2020 to 2060; this will occur slowly, adding approximately 0.03 percentage points to the share of GDP annually. Poorer health among the older population (aged ≥ 60 years) would see population ageing add an additional 0.17 percentage points above baseline estimates, but healthy ageing would lower baseline projections by 0.18 percentage points, corresponding to potential savings of just over US$ 46 million per year by 2060. CONCLUSIONS: Good health at older ages could moderate the potentially negative effects of population ageing on economic growth and health spending trends in Mongolia. Continued investment in the health of older people will improve quality of life, while also enhancing the sustainability of public budgets.