Nepal, June 25 -- Over the past 70 years, Nepal's elderly population (aged 60+) has grown 7.3 times while the total population grew only 3.5 times. In 2023, Nepal quietly crossed the international threshold of an ageing society defined as when 7% of the population is aged 65 and above, and is projected to be an aged society, 14% of population over 65, by 2049. In one of Nepal's more pointed historical ironies, the country is now older than it has ever been, while being governed by the youngest leadership it has ever seen.

Development economists have long worried about countries growing old before growing rich, where the costs of an ageing population arrive before a country has built the wealth to meet them. Nepal sits squarely in that c...