Is Poverty Rate Related to Population Aging Among Indonesia’s Districts?

Many studies have been done on the impact of an aging population on economic growth, but studies on the impact of aging on poverty are still limited though a higher economic growth rate is not necessarily translated into a lower poverty rate.  Yes, it is often argued that an aging population will result in rising poverty. This study fills this gap by analyzing districts in Indonesia. It examines three questions. The first is to examine whether aging is directly related to poverty. The second is to examine whether aging is indirectly related to poverty through per capita Regional Domestic Product. The third is to calculate the net relationship by summing the direct and indirect relationships. It conducts regression analyses on 2010, 2015, and 2020 data sets separately. It concludes that an aging district is not necessarily related to a higher poverty rate in the district. An observation that an aging district is associated with a higher poverty rate is only found in Java Island, with a modern economy and infrastructure as well as higher percentages of older people. In Outer Java Islands, an aging district is more likely to have a lower poverty rate.