Philip O’Keefe: Asia’s Challenge: Baby Busts, Ageing Populations & Male Cultures

Oct 4, 2023

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This week on 4 Quarter Lives Avivah Wittenberg-Cox talks with Philip O’Keefe, Director of the Ageing Asia Research Hub at the Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), based in Sydney Australia. Asia is on an accelerated journey on so many dimensions. We’ve long watched its extraordinary economic growth. Now, we’re seeing it accelerating in other areas that in the past took far longer in the West: namely demographic transition, ageing populations and plummeting fertility levels. The speed at which the populations of this region are shifting, reshaping and in some cases already shrinking is remarkable. The role of the Ageing Asia Research Hub is to plot and understand these shifts, and to examine their social and economic implications.

Philip (Pip) O’Keefe is Professor of Practice, University of New South Wales Business School, Sydney, and Director of the Ageing Asia Research Hub, Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR). Prior to joining CEPAR, between 1993 and 2021, he had a full and varied career at the World Bank, based in Washington D.C., Beijing, New Delhi, Sydney and Budapest. He worked in East Asia and Pacific (EAP), South Asia, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia regions, most recently as Practice Manager for Social Protection and Jobs for EAP region. During his World Bank career, he was regional Lead Human Development Economist for EAP, Lead Economist in EAP and South Asia, and a founding member of the Global Expert Team on Social Assistance. He was lead author and core team member on numerous flagship World Bank publications, including the EAP Regional Ageing report, China 2030 (co-authored with the Development Research Centre of the State Council of China), and Protecting All, a global strategy on the future of social protection systems in a changing world of work. He also led policy dialogue with governments and managed budget support and investment lending operations across Asia and ECA regions.

Prior to joining the World Bank, he was Lecturer at the University of Warwick, UK, focusing on international economic law, and Researcher at the University of London. He has a BA (Hons.) and LLB (University of Sydney); MSc (Oxford University); and LLM (London School of Economics).

Some Useful Links

* Ageing Asia Research Hub: https://cepar.edu.au/research/ageing-asia-research-hub

* Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research: https://cepar.edu.au

* World Bank Report: Live Long and Prosper – Aging in East Asia and Pacific (2016)

* Forbes article by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox: Women are Voting with their Wombs

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