A Factor Analysis of Age Structural Change in Asia

Abstract

In this paper, an analysis of age structural change in Asia was conducted. We should remember that Asia is the most populated continent, which population changes all the time so it explained the need of this research. Asia is the largest populous continent on earth with 30% of the world's land area and 60% of the world's current population as of 2016. The present paper is concerned with the study of the nature of age structural change in Asia. Using age classification variables and with the help of factor analysis, the paper attempts to answer a question what happened to the age group composition due to the effect of demographic transition. This paper attempts to analyze the interrelationships among the age groups in 34 countries of Asia during the period 1951 to 2016. Age structure varied substantially among the countries of Asia. The variation in age structure were explained by four factor model for male age groups and three factor model for female age groups. The study also shows that the variation in life expectancy is an important factor responsible for the variation in percentage of age group 15-80+ for males as well as females. However, fertility rate is also found to be inversely related to variation in the percentage of age group 15-80+ for females.