Four ideas for investing in the ageing population Top of the list are funds managed by Invesco Perpetual's Neil Woodford, who has famously backed pharmaceutical stocks for several years. His Invesco Perpetual High Income fund, is currently 35pc invested in health care stocks including Roche, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline. The other portfolios he oversees, which include the Edinburgh Investment Trust, are also skewed toward health care. This is not so much because Invesco is pursuing a theme of "ageing population" but because Mr Woodford believes some pharma shares are undervalued relative to future earnings deriving from treatments still in the pipeline. Specialist health care funds Long-standing unit trusts specialising in health-related sectors include Schroder Global Healthcare and Axa Framlington Healthcare, both of which have been running over five years. Polar Capital Healthcare Opportunities is a newer portfolio, launched in 2009, but with a strong record. For investors preferring tracker funds, Legal & General offers the Global Health and Pharma Index fund. More specialist are investment trusts MedicX and Primary Health Properties. Both own modern clinics and medical facilities that they let to doctors and NHS trusts. Or take the other view and invest where old age is not an issue If you don't buy the idea that companies aimed at the old are bound to boom, you can avoid the trend entirely by increasing your exposure to emerging markets whose populations remain young. That knocks out China, where the one-child policy has meant the population is older than in most rapidly developing nations. But India remains very young - and a number of funds, such as JPM India and Jupiter India, are successfully tapping the trend of growing wealth among younger generations with appetites for products and services aimed at them, such as credit, alcohol and new technology. Other countries with exceptionally young populations include the Philippines, Mexico and Indonesia and plenty of countries in the Middle East, including Iraq and Iran. It's impossible for UK investors to back the latter two countries but exchange-traded funds (ETFs) - low-cost funds that track assets - give access to others. Consider iShares MSCI Mexico IMI Capped Index fund (0.65pc annual cost) or HSBC MSCI Indonesia ETF (0.6pc cost). Backing individual countries with ETFs is a gamble. Personal expert view: How I'm backing the elderly boom