Global demographic reports and policy documents suggest that people in the developing world are living longer than ever before and are experiencing age-related changes in their health, as well as greater onset of multiple co-morbidities and chronic conditions, including dementia (United Nations 2015; WHO 2011). For example, two reports—World Population Ageing 2015 (United Nations 2015) and “Global Health and Aging” (WHO 2011)—assert that whereas aging is beginning to slow in developed regions, it is accelerating in the least developed countries at a rate that threatens the very possibility of economic advancement. Gerontologist Ellen Gee (2002, 752) suggests that the old age dependency ratio at the heart of projections is problematic on at least three counts: first, it assumes that people over or under a certain age will be dependent; second, it excludes unwaged labour from consideration and with it the gendered dimensions of paid and unpaid care work; and third, it creates a “false dichotomy—between people who are dependent and those who are not—that ignores the relations of interdependence and reciprocity that make up the fabric of social life.”

Aubrecht, K., & Boafo, A. (2020). Deconstructing dependency and development in global dementia policy. In K. Aubrecht, C. Kelly, & C.Rice (Eds.), The aging-disablity nexus (pp. 200–217). UBC Press.