Building Demographic Resilience Through Women’s Health and Fertility Care
This week in Incheon, Korea, the National Center for APEC, in partnership with Organon, convened a high-level roundtable on the future of fertility care, an urgent and strategic issue for the APEC region, where 17 of 21 member economies face demographic decline.
We were honored to open with remarks from Jiyoon Lee, Korea’s Senior Official for APEC, who framed the importance of placing women’s health and fertility care at the center of strategies to build demographic resilience.
Hannah Armstrong, Associate Principal in the Life Sciences Practice at Charles River Associates, shared findings from a newly released CRA report examining public policy approaches to fertility care access in the Asia Pacific region. Her insights underscored how evidence-based policy-making can drive both equity in access and long-term economic benefits.
From the clinical front lines, working every day in an economy confronting one of the world’s most severe population declines, Dr. Hwa Young Choi, fertility specialist at Maria Fertility Hospital in Seoul, offered a powerful perspective on the human realities behind the statistics.
Our discussion emphasized:
📈 The economic case for investing in women’s health: up to $13 billion in potential benefits from improved quality of life, reduced healthcare costs, and sustained workforce participation.
🚧 The need to remove barriers to equitable fertility care, from cost and geographic gaps to cultural stigma.
🤝 The role of innovation and collaboration: leveraging technology, AI, and public–private partnerships to expand access and improve outcomes.
By exchanging best practices, identifying shared priorities, and fostering regional cooperation, we took important steps toward ensuring women’s health is recognized as a pillar of demographic resilience.
Thank you to all our participants for contributing to this rich, solutions-focused dialogue. Together, we can advance policies that strengthen communities, economies, and the future of the APEC region.
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