In recognition of the situation of older persons in the world, 1999 was declared as the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. Following the Second World Assembly on Ageing held in April 2002 in Madrid, Spain, the inaugural ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Social Welfare and Development, held in October 2002 in Siem Reap, Cambodia, included in its ASEAN Work Programme on Social Welfare, Family, and Population (2003–06), priorities to take into account with regard to welfare, the family and population, given the emerging challenges arising from demographic developments, particularly population ageing.

Population ageing — the process by which older persons assume a proportionately larger share of the total population — is fast becoming a reality in Southeast Asia, but at much faster rates than previously experienced by developed countries. In part this is due to the huge advances made in the areas of health care knowledge, technologies and services, and as well as their accessibility by an increasingly larger segment of the population. Better control of perinatal and infant mortality, a decline in birth rates, improvements in nutrition, basic health care and control of many infectious diseases have all contributed to a Southeast Asian demographic transition revolution. In 1975, the estimated number of older persons was 18.3 million (or 5.7 per cent of the total population), but by 2000, that number had doubled to 37.3 million (or 7.1 per cent), and was projected to reach 87.9 million in 2025 (12.3 per cent). From 1975 to 2025, or in two generations, while the total Southeast Asian population would increase from 522.1 to 692.2 million, or by 32.6 per cent, the number of older persons would increase by 135.6 per cent. The number of older persons has been projected to reach 176.1 million or close to a quarter of the total population by 2050.