Journal of the Economics of Ageing最新文献

We study the causal effect of the introduction of caregiving respite in the form of hours of home help (caregiving supports) and financial subsidy (caregiving allowance) on the mental health of caregivers. We exploit evidence of a policy intervention that universalized previously means-tested caregiving subsidies and supports in Spain. Our estimates suggest evidence of an heterogeneous effect depending on the intensity of care provided. We find that caregiving supports reduce the probability of depressive symptoms among caregivers providing more than 50 hours of care. In contrast, caregiving subsidies give rise to a reduction in the probability of depressive symptoms among caregivers providing less than 50 hours of care. Consistently, we find evidence of an improvement in life satisfaction upon the receipt of subsidies and home supports . The latter effect is higher among part-time caregivers who spend between 20 and 50 caregiving hours/week which is explained by behavioural and preventive lifestyle changes. Finally, we estimate the ‘hypothetical caregiving subsidy’ amount that would have fully compensated caregivers’ for their wellbeing losses. We find estimates ranging between 800 and 850 euros/month, a magnitude well above the actual subsidy in Spain.

This study analyses the links between retirement and the distribution of intra-household wellbeing among Australian mixed-sex couples. We study the implications of own and partner’s retirement on measures of life satisfaction, financial satisfaction, and free time satisfaction using household panel data from Australia. We also measure the intertemporal effects of each partner’s retirement on wellbeing accounting for anticipation effects in the lead up to each partner’s retirement and possible adaptation effects in the years following each partner’s retirement. The results reveal evidence of gendered outcomes where in the long run, women’s retirement has negative implications on men’s free time satisfaction, while men’s retirement has negative implications on women’s financial satisfaction. On the other hand, in accordance with the hedonic treadmill model, both men and women adapt to changes in overall life satisfaction associated with their own or their partner’s retirement.

We explore the role of financial and pension information in increasing women’s knowledge and awareness of their future pension status and interest for pension information. We interview a representative sample of 801 Italian working women to assess their knowledge about pensions, financial issues and their own savings. The responses show that their knowledge and awareness of retirement planning is limited. We then run a randomized experiment to evaluate the effect of increased information regarding pensions on women’s awareness, knowledge, and behaviors. Women in the treated group are provided information in the form of three short online tutorials. A follow-up survey shows that these women become more interested and aware of pension schemes and retirement options after completing the tutorials and are more likely to be better informed and keener to obtain further information. When looking at changes in behavior, we find that treated women who are closer to retirement are more likely to believe that they would make different work-life decisions if they received specific pension information in a timely fashion. Middle-aged women are also more likely to have a supplementary pension fund if they are concerned about their standards of living after retirement.

The employment rates of older men have risen dramatically since the mid-1990s in a number of developed economies. Nevertheless, the employment rates of men aged 55–64 in many OECD countries remain at or below the levels observed in the mid-1970s, despite substantial improvements in health and longevity. In this review I summarize some of the driving forces behind the dramatic changes in older men’s employment over the last several decades and discuss the role for retirement reform to further boost employment in the future.

Objectives

Estimating the fiscal consequences of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) on patients and informal carers using a UK public economic perspective.

Methods

A simulated cohort of 1,000 pairs of people with AD and informal carers was compared with 1,000 demographically identical pairs in the general population. Both cohorts enter the model at the mean age of mild cognitive impairment onset. Time to AD onset was based on the literature and AD progression was modelled using published equations and a state-transition microsimulation. Labour participation, financial support, and paid taxes were linked to cognitive decline and caregiving needs using UK labour statistics and tax rates. Healthcare costs were based on published literature. Future costs and life-years were discounted at 3.5%. Results were reported as incremental differences in total tax revenue, financial support, and healthcare costs, over the AD continuum, between cohorts affected and unaffected by AD.

Results

Each AD-affected pair was associated with estimated incremental fiscal losses of £73,749 to the UK government. Financial support and healthcare costs were responsible for 59.3% and 22.2% of AD’s fiscal burden, respectively. Total lost tax revenue due to PwAD and carers’ reduced earnings represented 18.5% of total government losses. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of the results. Assuming mild cognitive impairment onset at age 60 let to incremental fiscal losses of £141,323 per AD-affected pair. Fiscal costs for entire UK population with AD were predicted to be £16 billion annually.

Conclusions

Alzheimer’s disease strongly impacts UK’s public economy and should be considered to inform healthcare policymaking.

Using data on stated preferences on the decumulation of pension wealth after retirement, we estimate a stylized structural life-cycle model incorporating several behavioural features. In the stated choice questions, pension income is in the form of a constant annuity, a “high-low” annuity that falls from a higher to a lower level five years into retirement, or a “low-high” annuity that does the reverse. This creates variation in liquid and illiquid wealth. Respondents are asked to choose among several expenditure patterns in the first ten years after retirement. We find that the respondents do not behave in the way the standard life-cycle model would predict. They respond to the variation in how they receive their income have a tendency to follow the rule of thumb of going for the middle choice alternative. Moreover, they value illiquid wealth much less than liquid wealth at the ten years time horizon.

Demographic shifts in population age pyramids mean that older adults now outnumber young people in many developed nations. Poor health associated with older age presents significant challenges to individuals and societies, not least in spiralling health care costs. Advances in scientific understanding of biological processes that change with age have led to the identification of core hallmarks of ageing, including cell senescence and dysregulated nutrient sensing, that represent new therapeutic targets. Drugs developed to target these hallmarks, such as senolytic and senomodifying agents as well as mTOR inhibitors, have been shown to improve later life health in experimental models. Results from early-stage clinical trials suggest that these therapeutic approaches will be applicable to ageing humans, with significant potential to improve later life health. Investments into effective biomedical interventions targeted to ageing processes are likely to give very high yields, especially since clinical adoption of treatments for (or even prevention of) age-related diseases is possible within the next decade.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chilean Congress approved three laws between July 2020 and April 2021 that allowed early withdrawals of pension funds without any eligibility constraints. In this paper, we use nationwide survey data to examine the factors associated with people’s assessments about the suitability of these policies in the context of the pandemic, with a particular focus on trust and political ideology. We find that respondents that declare high levels of trust in Chile’s pension system, financial system, and political institutions and actors tend to oppose early withdrawal policies. Similarly, respondents on the right of the political spectrum and those that voted for the incumbent president, who opposed this policy, also declare opposition to early withdrawals. Overall, our findings suggest that political attitudes and beliefs are associated with policy views on changes to Chile’s pension-fund system and that support for early withdrawal policies may be driven by lack of confidence in institutions.

Affordable access to health care was a challenge for the elderly in Ghana until the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme in 2003, where the elderly were exempted from premium payments. The study employs household-level data from the Ghana Living Standard Survey to investigate whether exempting the elderly from health insurance premium payments affects healthcare utilisation and labour market outcomes of the elderly in Ghana. The study finds that having health insurance increases the elderly visits to a health facility and the probability of being treated by health professionals. For labour market outcomes, the results indicate that free health insurance increases both the number of hours worked and earnings of the elderly and the size of the increase in earnings in agriculture is slightly larger for females than with males.

I present empirical evidence that we are only about two thirds of the way through a multi-decade demographic transition that is pushing down interest rates, as a higher share of the population moves into a high asset holding stage of their life cycle. I also summarise some new research that links debt, income inequality and wealth inequality, which have additional downward effects on interest rates. To address the risk of limited space for future monetary easing in such a low interest rate environment, there are three types of policy available. Changes that enable policy rates to be cut into deeply negative territory; temporarily or permanently higher inflation rates; policies that raise the neutral rate, for example by lowering time spent in retirement, or by lowering income and wealth inequality.