October 19 financial news — The 2026 Bund Annual Conference on "Technology, Geopolitics and the Global Economy" is being held from October 19 to 22, 2026 in Huangpu District, Shanghai. Rhee Chang-yong, a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and former Governor of the Bank of Korea, attended the conference and took part in a roundtable discussion.
Rhee Chang-yong stated that rapid population aging and low fertility rates are not limited to a small number of Asian countries such as Japan, but Asia is highly heterogeneous, and many Asian countries still enjoy a "demographic dividend," so the issue only involves a minority of countries.
Rhee Chang-yong believes that for these aging countries, many measures have already been adopted, especially in Japan, but so far the results have been relatively limited. "Among the various policies, one that I would say is relatively effective is the effort to increase the supply of female labor, which has effectively addressed the problem of a shrinking workforce. But on the other hand, as more women enter the labor market, the fertility rate has not improved as we would have hoped. Moreover, if you look at micro-level data, most of the additional female labor supply comes from older women aged 50 and above. So now, as aging intensifies further, they may not be able to continue working. Therefore, this problem has not yet been resolved," Rhee Chang-yong said.
Rhee Chang-yong further stated that another relatively successful policy is the use of immigration and foreign workers. This approach has achieved fairly remarkable results in Hong Kong, China and Singapore, but on the other hand, in Japan, South Korea, and some countries such as Thailand, the issue remains quite thorny. In Rhee Chang-yong's view, Japan is now opening its borders and absorbing large numbers of foreign workers, but it is already too late. Rhee Chang-yong believes that during the transition period, there is no other way but to make more effective use of foreign workers, yet the political environment is still not conducive to pursuing such policies. "So far, its impact remains limited, but whether these circumstances will change — I must say frankly that I am somewhat pessimistic, because the demographic issue is not a simple matter that can be solved in the short term by macroeconomic policy," Rhee Chang-yong said.
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