Gauging the cost of aging

Abstract

To explore the implications of population aging for New Zealand, the New Zealand Treasury collaborated with the Ministry of Health in 2002-04 to build a health expenditure model. The model shows how the demographic and health profile of the New Zealand population is changing and how these changes create pressures for increased government health expenditure. Results suggest that future demographic changes may be less threatening than is often assumed. However, maintaining the current growth rates of government health expenditure would mean substantial increases in the ratio between expenditure and gross domestic product.