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on Economics of Ageing |
| By: | Vandenberghe, Vincent |
| Abstract: | Population ageing in Europe calls for an overall rise in the age of retirement. However, many argue that this age should be differentiated to account for individuals' career arduousness. This paper explores the relevance of this idea. It combines the 7th wave of the SHARE panel data on health at an older age and US occupational O*NET data. With these unique data it first quantifies the impact of entire career arduous- ness on health at typical retirement age, relative to other key determinants (gender, childhood health, parental longevity). It then estimates the degree of retirement age differentiation that would be needed to compensate individuals for their career-related health handicap/advantage and get closer to "real" actuarial fairness. Using the age of 65 as a reference, results point at the need for differentiation ranging from 60 to 71. But the paper also shows that systematic retirement age differentiation would fail to match a significant portion of the full distribution of health at an older age. In a world where retirement policy compensates for career-related arduousness there would still be a lot of unaccounted health differences; in particular those related to health endow- ment. Using variance decomposition methods, we estimate that career-arduousness represents at most 5.83% of the model-explained variance of health at an older age. |
| Keywords: | Ageing,Health,Retirement Policy,SHARE,O*NET,Compensating Career Arduousness |
| JEL: | J14 I1 J26 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:803&r=all |
| By: | Hanming Fang; Ziteng Lei; Liguo Lin; Peng Zhang |
| Abstract: | Mental health problems among the elderly have attracted increasing attention. The most serious mental health problems may result in suicide, and lack of family companionship is often speculated to be a major cause. In this paper, we use high-frequency suicide rate data and utilize a novel temporal variation in the lunisolar calendar to provide evidence on the protective effects of the Chinese Lunar New Year (when the elderly people receive unusually high level of family companionship) on elderly suicide. We find that elderly suicide rate decreases by 8.7% during the Chinese Lunar New Year. In addition, the protective effects are stronger in counties where the typical level of daily family companionship for the elderly is lower. By contrast, we do not find similar protective effects for young and middle-age cohorts. We consider a variety of alternative mechanisms, and conclude that family companionship is an important channel for the protective effects of the Chinese Lunar New Year. Our study calls for greater attention to the mental health status and suicide problem of the elderly, especially with the rapid population aging and increasing prevalence of the “empty-nest” elderly in developing countries. |
| JEL: | I12 J14 |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:28566&r=all |
| By: | Trukeschitz, Birgit; Hajji, Assma; Kieninger, Judith; Malley, Juliette; Linnosmaa, Issmo; Forder, Julien |
| Abstract: | European countries have developed a range of long-term care (LTC) policy responses to support the increasing share of older people. However, little is known about the effectiveness of LTC services and benefits, particularly their impact on older peoples’ quality of life (QoL). This paper investigates the role of personal, care service and environmental characteristics on the effects of home care services on QoL across England, Finland and Austria. We used data from surveys conducted in England, Finland and Austria. In total, 811 older adults were included in the analysis. OLS regression including main effects and country-specific interactions was used to explore variation in gains in long-term care service-related quality-of-life (LTC-QoL). Explanatory variables were derived from the production of welfare framework and comprised home care service user socio-demographics, needs indicators, social support and environmental variables and characteristics of home care service provision. In all three countries, LTC-QoL gains increased with needs, indicating that home care services perform well, with additional gains declining the higher the needs. Also, better process quality contributed to LTC-QoL improvements in all three countries. In addition, the availability of informal care, social contact, financial household situation and living alone, were associated with changes in LTC-QoL only in one or two of the countries. Home care services increased service users’ QoL in all three European countries. The increase in QoL, however, varied across the countries. The results also provide insights into the benefits and limits of home care service provision and areas for future improvements. |
| Keywords: | ASCOT; Austria; England; Finland; comparative analysis; long-term care; 462-14-160 |
| JEL: | I31 I38 J14 |
| Date: | 2021–03–19 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:106222&r=all |
| By: | Jelnov, Pavel; Weiss, Yoram |
| Abstract: | We study the relationship between age and influence in a closed group of leading economists. We consider, as a measure of influence, monthly RePEc rankings and address the dynamics of rankings within the top group as a function of age. We find that the rankings peak at age 60 or 30 years after Ph.D. graduation. Differently from other leaders, current and future Nobel laureates do not experience deterioration of the rankings if their works and citations are discounted by recursive impact factor, and their ranking with respect to the breadth of citations across fields improves at old age. |
| Keywords: | aging,citations,influence,Nobel,research productivity |
| JEL: | J24 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:glodps:810&r=all |
| By: | Flavien Moreau; Adriana Lleras-Muney |
| Abstract: | We propose a dynamic production function of population health and mortality from birth onwards. Our parsimonious model provides an excellent fit for the mortality and survival curves for both primate and human populations since 1816. The model sheds light on the dynamics behind many phenomena documented in the literature, including (i) the existence and evolution of mortality gradients across socio-economic statuses, (ii) non-monotonic dynamic effects of in-utero shocks, (iii) persistent or “scarring” effects of wars and (iv) mortality displacement after large temporary shocks such as extreme weather. |
| Keywords: | Health;Aging;Population and demographics;Women;Environment;Mortality,In-utero shocks,Selection,Scarring,WP,health stock,health distribution,investment schedule,log mortality rates,health shock |
| Date: | 2021–02–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2021/037&r=all |
| By: | Marcin Bielecki (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw; Narodowy Bank Polski); Michał Brzoza-Brzezina (SGH Warsaw School of Economics; Narodowy Bank Polski); Marcin Kolasa (SGH Warsaw School of Economics) |
| Abstract: | This paper investigates the distributional consequences of monetary policy across generations. We use a life-cycle model with a rich asset structure as well as nominal and real rigidities calibrated to the euro area using both macroeconomic aggregates and microeconomic evidence from the Household Finance and Consumption Survey. We show that the life-cycle profiles of income and asset accumulation decisions are important determinants of redistributive effects of monetary shocks and ignoring them can lead to highly misleading conclusions. The redistribution is mainly driven by nominal assets and labor income, less by real and housing assets. Overall, we find that a typical monetary policy easing redistributes welfare from older to younger generations. |
| Keywords: | monetary policy, life-cycle models, wealth redistribution |
| JEL: | E31 E52 J11 |
| Date: | 2021 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:war:wpaper:2021-03&r=all |
| By: | Lin He; Zongxia Liang; Yilun Song; Qi Ye |
| Abstract: | In this paper,we study the individual's optimal retirement time and optimal consumption under habitual persistence. Because the individual feels equally satisfied with a lower habitual level and is more reluctant to change the habitual level after retirement, we assume that both the level and the sensitivity of the habitual consumption decline at the time of retirement. We establish the concise form of the habitual evolutions, and obtain the optimal retirement time and consumption policy based on martingale and duality methods. The optimal consumption experiences a sharp decline at retirement, but the excess consumption raises because of the reduced sensitivity of the habitual level. This result contributes to explain the "retirement consumption puzzle". Particularly, the optimal retirement and consumption policies are balanced between the wealth effect and the habitual effect. Larger wealth increases consumption, and larger growth inertia (sensitivity) of the habitual level decreases consumption and brings forward the retirement time. |
| Date: | 2021–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2103.16800&r=all |