Journal of the Economics of Ageing最新文献

I investigate the links between the part-time employment opportunities and the labour supply adjustments of older workers, focusing on both the extensive and intensive margins. Utilising data for 30 European countries in the period from 2011 to 2021, I construct a quasi-panel that compares individuals aged 60–64 with those aged 55–59 from five years prior. I find that the employees in sectors offering more part-time jobs are more likely to stay in employment, and that the total hours worked by these employees decrease at a slower rate than those of the employees in sectors imposing more rigid hours constraints. These results are most pronounced for women in manual types of occupation, but are significant across almost all examined worker categories. The positive relationship between the part-time employment opportunities and the total hours worked of older employees is robust to various modifications in the empirical setup. However, this relationship is heterogeneous across countries, and is least pronounced in the countries with a high availability of part-time jobs.

This paper develops an overlapping generations model with intergenerational transfer of time in the form of grandparenting and pay-as-you-go (PAYG) pension system. The introduction of time transfer allows taking into account child care responsibilities. Under the situation of population ageing, a fall in the fertility rate leads to not only a reduction in contributions to the pension system but also lower childcare responsibilities that increase life-cycle income. Hence, the impacts of demographic changes on old labour decisions and pensions need to be re-examined. I find that in countries with low fertility rates and small pension systems, a fall in fertility rate reduces working time in old age. Consequently, population ageing due to a lower fertility rate always decreases pensions. On the other hand, for countries with high fertility rates and countries with low fertility rates but large pension systems, a decrease in fertility rate reduces retirement age. In these countries, pensions will increase if retirement is elastic to changes in fertility. In all cases, longer life expectancy increases pensions if retirement is relatively inelastic to changes in longevity.

We investigate the potential dynamics in the effect of retirement, on food-at-home purchases and dietary quality in Denmark. We combine Home-scan data with nutritional information and administrative data on retirement, income and health status. The panel contains 497 retiring and 1,471 control households. We estimate the effect of retirement up to 10 years after the date of retirement by using Fixed Effects with health and wealth proxies, as well as Fixed Effects IV with the ages eligible for retirement as instruments to control for the potential endogeneity of retirement. Based on the Fixed effects results we find that overall dietary quality increase slightly at retirement, but find only minor and mostly insignificant changes in the individual components of the diet. The effects are found to be of the same magnitude, but insignificant in the FE-IV estimation. Hence, there seem to be a small increase in dietary health upon retirement in Denmark. The results for food expenditure and energy consumption are ambiguous. Based on the FE with proxy variables we find indications of long-run adjustments in food expenditures, while energy consumption is immediately affected by retirement, but has no further adjustment. Both effects are insignificant in the FE-IV estimation. The very small changes observed, suggest that dietary behaviour might be governed by habitual behaviour and might also be due to the high income replacement rate at retirement in Denmark.

The global shifts in population age distribution brings about both challenges and opportunities. On the one hand, demographic transitions present an opportunity for sustained economic growth. However, it also poses challenges in meeting future consumption requirements. In this paper, we performed an index decomposition analysis linked with an economic-demographic model to trace how population age structure change may affect household electricity demand with the Philippines as a specific case study. Our results show that population ageing has a direct, significant, and persistent effect on residential electricity demand growth. In economies like the Philippines where the elderly consumes more electricity per person relative to younger cohorts, population ageing is expected to raise aggregate electricity demand through sheer compositional accounting effect. But even in economies where average electricity consumption is flat or declining in age, demographic dividends are projected to raise aggregate electricity consumption by expanding electricity access and increasing usage intensity across all age groups through a positive income effect. The permanence and irreversibility of population ageing, and the persistence of economic growth from demographic change may drive continuing growth in the energy sector.

Using a life-cycle model and a representative sample of households, we analyze the extent to which using home equity leads to (heterogeneity in) welfare gains over the life cycle. The most policy-feasible option to borrow against 50% of home equity over the life cycle leads to median (average) welfare gains of 7% (11%). However, we find substantial heterogeneity with half of the households facing a welfare gain between 3% and 13%. Much of this heterogeneity is explained by heterogeneity in households’ income and (housing) wealth and less so by heterogeneity in their demographics or preferences for consumption smoothing and time.

This paper investigates how crossing the normal pension eligibility age affects retirement status and healthcare utilization by using the exogenous rule for the public pension benefit and a dataset for the elderly population from South Korea — one of the high-income Asian countries. To overcome selection bias, I rely on a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to compare the outcomes of those barely above and below eligibility age thresholds. By using aggregate measures of healthcare utilization, I find that retirement increases inpatient care utilization, while it has a negative but statistically insignificant effect on outpatient care utilization. These results are qualitatively consistent with the existing evidence in the developing country documenting that retirement positively impacts inpatient care utilization.

Israel’s rapidly growing population comprises three major groups: Israeli Arabs; Haredim, also known as ultraorthodox Jews; and the general population, mainly composed of secular and religious Jews. Each of these has a different demographic and socioeconomic profile, including very different age structures and anticipated growth patterns. Here, we disaggregate Israel’s 2018 national NTA schedule for each of the three subpopulations. We show that as of 2018, collected tax income fell short of public expenditures by 4.9% in the general population, 56.2% in the Arab population, and 66.1% in the Haredi population. The Haredi population was almost fully reliant on public transfers to make up this difference. The low fiscal support ratios (FSRs) in Israel’s Arab and Haredi populations are a direct result of their low employment levels and low-quality employment. We forecast the fiscal consequences of two type of compositional shifts within Israel’s population up to 2050: aging and a rapid increase in the share of Haredi Jews at all ages. These forecasts point to a 12% reduction in Israel’s national fiscal support ratio by 2050, with two-thirds of this caused by aging, and the remainder by the increasing share of Haredim.

Population aging increases dependency levels and can influence the transition from working life to retirement. Changes in population structure have important economic effects, which can be positive when analyzing the impacts of a more educated older labor force but could also impact families and governments. It is important to consider how age and education composition are associated with each other in contexts marked by high levels of inequality. In this paper, we analyze the economic consequences of the aging process in Brazil considering the role of improvements in education and the possibility of the constitution of a silver dividend in the country. We use a series of simulation models, based on the determinants of labor supply and labor income of people aged 45 years and over, to investigate the impacts of changes in the educational composition of the labor force. Our simulations show that the positive association between education, labor supply, and labor income would be more pronounced in scenarios of higher levels of education, labor market stability (high status activities and informality reduction), and changes in retirement rules, specifically the establishment of minimum ages. Such a context would increase the number of older workers and improve productivity, allowing appropriate conditions for the development of a silver dividend in Brazil in a quantitative and a qualitative way.

Prior research on inequality in Mexico has largely centered on income, education, and job status, overlooking the compound impact on gender and generational disparities. This oversight limits our understanding of social mobility dynamics and prospects. This study contributes to this body of research by analyzing labor income and consumption inequalities between 1994 and 2014, incorporating unpaid care and household production from 2014, using National Transfer Accounts frameworks. The study reveals five main findings. First, an increase in the number of households with secondary education might not be enough to significantly reduce inequality, as the proportion of households with tertiary education remained unchanged between 1994 and 2014. Second, progress in reducing labor income and consumption inequality among educational groups stagnated or reversed by 2014. Third, substantial differences exist in labor income and consumption across socioeconomic groups, with men consistently earning more than women. Fourth, unpaid household production varies across educational groups, with women in the most educated group dedicating the least time to these activities, while men in this group contribute more than other groups. Lastly, unpaid care and household production plays a significant role for women, and if they were compensated, it could considerably equalize labor income across genders and socioeconomic groups. This paper emphasizes the critical role of education and the equitable valuation of paid and unpaid work in reducing economic disparities in Mexico across genders and throughout the economic life cycle. To address disparities, the study stresses the importance of expanding education and aligning labor markets accordingly.

The present study uses estimations of the National Accounts system by age and socioeconomic status to analyze inequalities in human capital investment in children. Socioeconomic status is proxied by the household head's education; children are the population under age 21; human capital comprises education and health consumption of National Accounts. The estimates suggest that funding human capital requires the re-assignation of resources between ages and socioeconomic groups and makes evident the central role of government interventions in redistribution. Nevertheless, differences in investment are relevant primarily because of investments funded with private resources. Estimates suggest that the improvement in socioeconomic level has different effects on the destination of resources allocated to children according to the starting level: first, consumption increases, then investment in education, and finally, investment in health.