When it comes to demographics, it is no secret that Thailand is quite an anomaly.
With a median age of about 41 years old, Thailand is among the oldest countries in Southeast Asia -- second only to Singapore, which has a median age of 42 years old and about 1.5 times the Asean average of 28.9 years. But whereas most countries with a comparable median age are categorised as developed economies, Thailand stands out for being one of the few still-developing economies whose population has already started ageing.
As a comparison, the median population age in Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea only started to increase when their gross domestic product per capita breached the US$41,000-mark (about 1.3 million baht) -- over twice the level of the kingdom's current GDP per capita.
