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on Economics of Ageing |
| By: | Niimi, Yoko |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the implications of providing care to elderly parents for adult children’s retirement plans using micro data from a Japanese survey. We find no significant effect of caregiving on family caregivers’ planned retirement age if we do not take into account caregiving intensity but find a negative and significant effect onretirement plans for intensive caregivers, particularly among women. These findings suggest that relying on family members to provide elderly care can pose a serious challenge to the ongoing efforts of the government to promote the labor supply of women and the elderly to address the shrinkage of the working-age population in Japan. The estimation results suggest that ensuring access to formal care services can help family members reconcile their paid work with caregiving requirements, thereby alleviating the adverse effect of caregiving on their retirement plans. The results also suggest that the financial burden of formal care services could require caregivers to postpone retirement in some cases. |
| Keywords: | Aging, caregiving, elderly care, informal care, Japan, labor supply, long-term care, parental care, retirement, Aging, caregiving, elderly care, informal care, Japan, labor supply, long-term care, parental care, retirement, D10, J14, J26 |
| Date: | 2017–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agi:wpaper:00000127&r=age |
| By: | Carone, Giuseppe; Eckefeldt, Per; Giamboni, Luigi; Laine, Veli; Pamies, Stephanie |
| Abstract: | Most EU Member States have carried out substantial pension reforms over the last decades in order to enhance fiscal sustainability, while maintaining adequate pension income. The intensity of pension reforms has been particularly strong since 2000. These reforms have been implemented through a wide range of measures that have substantially modified the pension system rules and parameters. One of the most important elements of pension reforms, aside of whether countries engaged or not in a systemic change, has been the introduction of mechanisms aimed at automatically adjusting (indexing) the key pension parameters (pension age, benefits, financing resources) to demographic pressure (e.g. changes in life expectancy, increase in the dependency ratio). Indeed, since the mid-1990's, half of the EU Member States have adopted either automatic balancing mechanisms, sustainability factors and / or automatic links between retirement age and life expectancy. All these pension reforms are projected to have a substantial impact on containing future pension expenditure trends. According to the latest long-term projections in the 2015 Ageing Report, public pension expenditure is projected to be close to 11% of GDP over the long run in the EU, almost the same as in 2013. However, the fiscal impact of ageing is still projected to be substantial in many EU countries, becoming apparent already over the course of the next two decades. This is also due to the very gradual phasing in of already legislated reforms, an issue that raises questions about the intergenerational fairness of the reforms and poses some doubt on the time-consistency of their implementation. Indeed, the sustainability-enhancing pension reforms legislated in a majority of EU countries will lead to a reduction of generosity of public pension schemes for future generations of retirees. But to make sure that these reforms will not have to face political and social resistance and risk of reversal in the moment they start to be implemented in full, other "flanking" policy measures are likely to be necessary: for example, reforms that boost retirement incomes by effectively extending working lives and employability of older workers (also through flexible working arrangements that allow people to keep working beyond current formal retirement age and to step down gradually from full-time to part-time to very part-time work) and provide other means of retirement incomes (e.g. private pensions) and appropriate social-safety nets to avoid that low-wage people follow back in poverty at old age. |
| Keywords: | Pensions, ageing population, public expenditure, debt, deficit, potential growth, structural reforms, retirement age, older workers, longevity risk. |
| JEL: | H52 H55 J1 J26 |
| Date: | 2016–12–20 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:78163&r=age |
| By: | Didier Mumpambala Luzolo |
| Abstract: | African populations need better support through social protection mechanisms. Among those who need social security are millions of older people who, having worked all their lives in the formal sector, are in precarious situations with lower benefits. This study aims to appreciate theoretically, using the principal–agent model, the need for government intervention as a way to improve social security in Democratic Republic of the Congo. The study reveals that the Congolese government as a principal can motivate the Institut National de Sécurité Sociale (National Social Security Institute, public company) as an agent by offering two types of contracts (optimal and sub-optimal) in order to increase Congolese pension income. |
| Date: | 2016 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp2016-165&r=age |
| By: | Ohinata, Asako; Picchio, Matteo |
| Abstract: | We analyse how the financial support for long-term elderly care affects the household’s propensity to save. Using the difference-in-differences estimator, we investigate the 2002 Scottish reform, which introduced free formal personal care for all the Scottish elderly aged 65 and above. We find that the policy reduced the household saving rate by 1:9 percentage points. This amounts to an annual reduction in the flow of saving of £503. Moreover, the estimated effect is heterogeneous across the age of the head of household. The largest effect is observed when the household head is in his/her 40s, with the reduction in the saving rate of 3:5 percentage points or £1; 213 per year. |
| Keywords: | Long-term elderly care,ageing,means tested financial support,saving rate,difference-in-differences |
| JEL: | C21 D14 I18 J14 |
| Date: | 2017 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:43&r=age |
| By: | Dauth, Christine (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]); Lang, Julia (Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany]) |
| Abstract: | "Demographic change implies an increasing demand for elderly care and a lower labor force potential at the same time. Training unemployed workers in care occupations might mitigate this problem. This study analyzes the effectiveness of subsidized training in elderly care professions for the unemployed in Germany over 12 years. We find that subsidized further training and retraining in elderly care improves the employment chances of unemployed workers substantially in the long term. Moreover, a high share of these re-employed workers remain in the care sector. A high percentage of parttime work and conditional wage gains for only certain retraining participants indicate shortcomings in the quality of employment. However, subsidized training seems to be an adequate measure to re-employ unemployed workers in the elderly care sector and to narrow the gap between demand and supply in elderly care." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) |
| Keywords: | Arbeitslose, berufliche Reintegration, arbeitsmarktpolitische Maßnahme, Weiterbildung, Altenpflege, Arbeitsmarktchancen, Integrierte Erwerbsbiografien |
| JEL: | I11 J24 J68 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iab:iabdpa:201713&r=age |
| By: | Martijn Boermans; Rients Galema |
| Abstract: | With the adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, better understanding of portfolio carbon dioxide (CO2) exposures has become increasingly important for investors, regulators and society at large. In this paper we measure the portfolio carbon footprints (CFPs) of pension funds' stock investments. We utilize security-by-security holdings of Dutch pension funds over the period 2009-2015 and combine this with firm-level CO2 information to analyze the drivers of CFP at the portfolio level. The results show that pension funds face intricate trade-offs when aiming to reduce portfolio related CO2 emissions: expected dividend yields are positively related to the carbon footprint while portfolios' systematic risk (market beta) is negatively related to the carbon footprint. The dividend trade-off with carbon exposures only applies to well-funded pension funds and is driven to some extent by investments in energy and utility companies. For the period 2013-2015 pension funds which publicly disclose their carbon footprint tend to have relatively lower exposure to firm with high carbon emissions. |
| Keywords: | carbon emissions; pension funds; institutional investors; socially responsible investment; climate change |
| JEL: | G11 G23 H55 Q54 Q56 |
| Date: | 2017–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dnb:dnbwpp:554&r=age |