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on Economics of Ageing |
| By: | Changsu Ko (Inha University); Hwanoong Lee (Konkuk University) |
| Abstract: | We investigate the causal effect of increased elderly welfare expenditure in South Korea on the suicide rate among older adults, using predicted expenditure changes induced by the Basic Pension reform as an instrumental variable. Our findings show that higher welfare spending explains 74.5% of the decline in the suicide rate among individuals aged 65+ between 2013 and 2019, with especially large reductions among men aged 80+. Household-level evidence indicates that while total income remained stable, consumption increased following the reform, particularly in transportation and leisure. We further show that the reform reduced unmet medical needs and stress and increased participation in community and leisure activities, while leaving depressive symptoms unchanged. Overall, the results indicate that stronger public income transfer programs reduce income uncertainty, enhance consumption and leisure activities, and play a crucial role in mitigating elderly suicide rates. |
| Keywords: | Welfare Expenditure, Basic Pension, Suicide Rates, Elderly Population, Public Income Transfer |
| JEL: | H31 H51 I14 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:inh:wpaper:2025-2 |
| By: | Bertrand Gruss; Eric Huang; Andresa Helena Lagerborg; Diaa Noureldin; Galip Kemal Ozhan |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the role of ‘healthy aging’ in boosting labor supply in Korea. First, we use microdata from surveys to assess whether there is evidence that the physical abilities of individuals aged 50 years and above have been improving over successive cohorts. Second, we investigate whether health improvements among older workers influence their labor market outcomes, such as the decision to supply labor or to retire. We use an instrumental variable approach to enable causal inference, proxying exogenous variations in health with the incidence of certain chronic diseases. Our findings reveal that (i) physical health indicators have improved on average across birth cohorts, providing evidence in favor of ‘healthy aging’ in Korea, and (ii) better health increases the probability of participating in the labor force and postponing retirement. Overall, our results suggest that healthy aging has increased the labor supply of older individuals in Korea by around 1.9 percentage points per year during the 2006-20 period. The results for Korea are qualitatively comparable but quantitatively somewhat stronger than those for comparator Asian countries. |
| Keywords: | Population aging; demographic change; healthy aging; labor markets |
| Date: | 2025–12–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2025/260 |
| By: | Duk Gyoo Kim (Yonsei University); In Do Hwang (Bank of Korea) |
| Abstract: | Elderly poverty remains a critical issue in South Korea, despite widespread homeownership among older adults. Although the home pension program allows retirees to unlock housing wealth, uptake remains below 2% as of 2024. Using a large-scale survey of adults aged 55-79, we conduct an information provision experiment to assess how policy reforms and belief corrections affect demand. We find that enrollment intention rises by 6 percentage points when monthly pension payments are adjusted with house price changes, and by 5 percentage points when bequest conditions are made more flexible. Notably, merely informing that the fixed monthly payments-often perceived as disadvantageous during housing price increases-do not result in a loss when house prices rise because the amount bequeathed to their children increases accordingly, led to a 7%p increase in enrollment intention. Our results suggest that addressing informational barriers may be as effective as structural reforms in increasing program uptake. |
| Keywords: | Home Pension, Reverse Mortgage, Survey Experiment |
| JEL: | D14 C93 H55 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yon:wpaper:2025rwp-273 |
| By: | Sita Slavov |
| Abstract: | This paper presents evidence suggesting that delayed Social Security claiming by husbands – resulting in an actuarially enhanced benefit – attenuates the financial shock of widowhood for their wives. Under Social Security survivor benefit rules, primary earners (usually husbands) pass on the actuarial adjustments from delayed claiming to their surviving spouses. Using a staggered difference-in-differences approach, I find women whose husbands delayed claiming to full retirement age or later face a post-widowhood increase of 6.9 percentage points in the probability of falling below the 5th percentile of the pre-widowhood income distribution. This effect is almost 12 percent smaller for each year of delayed claiming by the husband (though the attenuation is concentrated in the first 4 years of widowhood). The general findings are robust to instrumenting for the husband’s claiming age using the loosening of the retirement earnings test in 2000 – a policy change that incentivized earlier claiming. |
| JEL: | D14 H55 J26 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34612 |
| By: | Philippe d'Astous; Thomas Geelen; Jakub Hajda |
| Abstract: | How does workforce aging affect corporate investment? We investigate this question using comprehensive matched employer-employee data. Exploiting variation in the age of newly hired workers, we find that firms hiring older workers significantly boost capital investment. Specifically, a typical increase in the average age of new hires raises investment rates by 0.3 percentage points—a 2.6% increase relative to the sample mean. To establish causality, we implement a shift-share instrumental variable approach that leverages industry-level demographic trends interacted with firms’ initial workforce composition. Our results are consistent with a model where firms optimally choose between hiring younger and older workers who differ in productivity and wages. |
| Keywords: | corporate investment, workforce aging, labor heterogeneity |
| JEL: | G30 G31 J1 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsi:irersi:20 |
| By: | Alice Henriques Volz; Elizabeth Llanes; Jeffrey P. Thompson |
| Abstract: | The question of whether affluent households save at a higher rate has been asked by economists on numerous occasions since the 1950s. It is standard in this research to identify affluent, or “rich, ” households as those with high lifetime earnings or income to better ground the empirical question in relevant theory. Existing results in the literature, however, are mixed on whether rich households in fact save more than others, with some suggesting a generally flat savings profile across the distribution and others supporting the notion that the rich do indeed save more. Many of the empirical papers do not include direct measures of lifetime earnings, instead relying on proxies. Additionally, few include the full range of assets that are relied on for low and middle-income households to finance their retirement, and even fewer use data that include sufficient samples of households that are actually “rich.” The primary contribution of this paper is to combine all three in an examination of U.S. households. We use the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), which oversamples high net worth households, in combination with direct estimation of lifetime earnings developed in Jacobs et al (2021), to explore wealth to lifetime earnings ratios – the cumulative impact of savings over time – across the lifetime earnings distribution. In addition, we utilize an expanded measure of wealth which includes the asset value of defined benefit pensions (following Devlin-Foltz, et al, 2016 and Sabelhaus and Volz, 2019, 2022) and the public pension program, Social Security. We find a steep gradient of savings when defining rich households by their lifetime earnings, which crucially includes business incomes in households’ earnings. The steepness, though, does not manifest until the top deciles of lifetime earnings. Fagareng, Holm, Moll, and Natvik (2021) draw attention to the outsized contribution of capital gains in driving wealth accumulation of the rich; when we remove unrealized capital gains from our metrics, however, the gradient of the wealth–lifetime-earnings ratio is reduced but not removed. |
| Keywords: | Distribution; Lifetime earnings; Pension; Savings; Social security; Wealth |
| JEL: | D14 D31 E21 G51 |
| Date: | 2025–10–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2025-97 |
| By: | Sanny B. D. Afable (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Megan Evans (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Yana C. Vierboom (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Kaarina Korhonen; Pekka Martikainen (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Júlia Mikolai (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Mikko Myrskylä (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany); Hill Kulu (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Health is a driver of residential mobility in later life. The literature, however, overlooks how health decline influences the residential moves of not just the older adult but also their family members, who are potential sources of informal care. This study examines whether parental health decline is associated with parents and their adult children moving closer to each other, and whether and how this association varies by parental sociodemographic characteristics. We study Finland, one of the most rapidly ageing countries in Europe. Using a random sample of Finnish parents aged 50-83 (N = 3, 689, 953) drawn from linked administrative registers, we examine the relationship between hospital admissions and subsequent residential moves. Results show that a quarter of residential moves experienced by older parents are proximity-enhancing, and around 60% of these moves are done by adult children. However, we find that it is the parents—rather than the children—who engage in proximity-enhancing moves following hospitalisation, highlighting the dual challenges of worsening health and residential relocation in later life. The association between hospitalisation and co-residence with a child is especially pronounced for older, lower-educated, and spouseless parents, while younger and non-homeowning parents are more likely to move closer to a child following hospitalisation. |
| Keywords: | Finland, ageing, health, population registers, residential mobility |
| JEL: | J1 Z0 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dem:wpaper:wp-2025-037 |
| By: | Nicholas R. Lardy (Peterson Institute for International Economics) |
| Abstract: | Many experts see China's economy as constrained because of a weak social safety net, especially the retirement system, resulting in anemic domestic consumption spending. This view is out of date. Recent data indicate that China has expanded many parts of its social safety net and that consumption spending has accelerated. Social expenditures in China have more than doubled as a share of GDP since 2010 and are on par with Mexico and Turkey. But given China's aging population, safety net spending and domestic consumption spending will need to expand further to put China's economy on a more sustainable path. The latest data should clear the cobwebs of misunderstanding that have led to both complacency and unnecessary alarm about China's economic prospects among observers in the United States and other countries. China's government is hardly unaware of the importance of stronger household consumption and has announced policies to increase consumer spending, including more generous pension benefits for farmers and rural migrant workers. If these initiatives are implemented, the growth of household consumption is likely to accelerate. |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iie:pbrief:pb25-7 |
| By: | Nurina Merdikawati; Elise Stephenson; Michelle K. Ryan; Gosia Mikolajczak; Isabella Vacaflores; Samantha Lau; Hang Anh Nguyen; Valentina Yulita Dyah Utari; Eliesta Handitya; Nina Toyamah; Veto Tyas Indrio; Adinda Ghinashalsabilla Salman; Marybelle Kaylea Herman; Gregoria Maisy Dwi Lestari; Aubrey D. Tabuga; John Joseph S. Ocbina; Kevin Robert B. Pilar Jr; Jorge Kerby B. Limqueco; Le Nguyen Que Huong; Pham Thi Huong; Nguyen Ha My; Bui Thi Thuy Linh; Pham Thi Giang; Nguyen Viet Cuong; Phung Duc Tung |
| Keywords: | care economy, Southeast Asia, childcare, older people's care, disability care |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:agg:wpaper:4451 |
| By: | Alden Cheng; Martin Hackmann; Martin Benjamin Hackmann |
| Abstract: | We provide causal evidence that patient peer effects generate mortality impacts comparable to provider quality differences. Drawing on administrative records covering 2.6 million stays (2000–2010) across 7, 200 U.S. nursing homes, we exploit plausibly exogenous roommate assignments identified through unique room identifiers. We estimate that assignment to a roommate diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or Alzheimer’s disease related dementias (ADRD), relative to placement in a private room, increases 90-day mortality by 2.1 percentage points (14% of baseline)—equivalent to receiving care at a nursing home one full standard deviation worse in quality. Effects differ sharply by patient type: patients with AD/ADRD benefit substantially from cognitively healthy roommates but not from private rooms, suggesting important peer monitoring and support roles. In contrast, mortality of patients without AD/ADRD does not depend on roommate cognitive health but is reduced in private rooms. A simple assignment rule exploiting this heterogeneity could reduce overall mortality by 0.8 percentage points without additional resources. |
| Keywords: | peer effects, mortality, nursing homes, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD), long-term care, room assignments, health care quality |
| JEL: | D62 I11 I12 I18 J14 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12335 |
| By: | Ramoutar, Richard. S |
| Abstract: | Earlier studies examining the impact of insurance sector activity on economic growth have produced mixed and often inconclusive results. This study re-examines the growth effects of financial development by jointly analyzing life insurance premium volume, non-life insurance premium volume, insurance company assets, pension fund assets, and mutual fund assets. Using annual panel data for 33 developed and developing countries over the period 2000--2016, we apply a panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) framework employing the Pooled Mean Group (PMG) and Mean Group (MG) estimators. The results provide robust evidence of cointegration among the variables and indicate that insurance sector development and mutual fund assets have a positive, statistically significant impact on economic growth in both the short- and long-run. These findings highlight the importance of contractual savings institutions as key channels through which financial development supports long-term economic performance. |
| Keywords: | Insurance markets, Pension funds, Mutual funds, Financial development, Economic growth, Panel ARDL, PMG, MG |
| JEL: | G15 O1 |
| Date: | 2025–12–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:127380 |
| By: | Maria Petrillo (ESRC Centre for Care & CIRCLE, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TU, UK); Ricardo Rodrigues (ISEG Research, ISEG (Lisbon School of Economics and Management), Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal); Matt Bennett (ESRC Centre for Care & School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham, UK); Gwilym Pryce (ESRC Centre for Care & School of Economics, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TU, UK) |
| Abstract: | We provide the first detailed cohort analysis to investigate both the effect of individual-level poverty and meso-level deprivation on the gender care gap, highlighting how individual circumstances and place shape caregiving provision. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (N =40, 324), we apply two complementary approaches: (i) multilevel mixed-effect logistic regression to provide detailed age cohort analysis of the probability of providing informal care by sex, accounting for the nested data structure; and (ii) Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) to examine whether the factors that shape the probability of providing care have additive or multiplicative reinforcing effects. Results reveal a clear age pattern in caregiving, peaking between ages 60–70 before declining, with earlier-born cohorts showing higher caregiving likelihood at the same ages compared to later-born cohorts. The gender care gap is most pronounced among middle-born cohorts (1969–1978, 1959–1968, and 1949–1958), particularly between ages 50 and 60. Both poverty and geographic deprivation significantly shape gendered caregiving inequalities: the gender care gap is wider among individuals above the poverty line and in deprived local authority districts. The caregiving likelihood is primarily driven by the independent effects of cohort, gender, poverty, and meso-level deprivation, with limited evidence of multiplicative intersectional effects. These findings demonstrate that the gender care gap is not a uniform phenomenon. Policy attempts to address the gender care gap need to be mindful of these variations, not least because they potentially elucidate the potential sources of gender inequalities in care. |
| Keywords: | Informal caregiving, inequality, age-cohort analysis, MAIHDA |
| JEL: | D63 J16 I3 |
| Date: | 2025–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:shf:wpaper:2025009 |
| By: | Katerina Vachova (RECETOX, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic); Anna Bartoskova Polcrova (RECETOX, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic); Denes Stefler (Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, United Kingdom); Nadezda Capkova (National Institute of Public Health, Prague, Czechia); Martin Bobak (RECETOX, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic; Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, United Kingdom); Hynek Pikhart (RECETOX, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic; Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, United Kingdom) |
| Abstract: | **Purpose** Late-life depression is more likely to be modified by external factors, such as diet. We aimed to longitudinally assess the relationship of three dietary scores with depressive symptoms in Czech older adults. **Methods** We used data on 3519 participants from the Czech part of the prospective Health, Alcohol and Psychosocial factors In Eastern Europe cohort. Participants reported their depressive symptoms using the Centre for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale. Healthy Diet Indicator (HDI), Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS), and Eastern European Diet Score (EEDS), were calculated from a Food Frequency Questionnaire collected at baseline. Growth curve model was used to investigate the longitudinal relationship between adherence to various dietary scores and depressive symptoms. **Results** At baseline, women with high adherence to any of the three dietary scores had significantly lower depressive symptoms compared with those with low adherence (HDI: B=-0.65, 95\% CI [-1.18; -0.12], MDS: -0.56 [-1.01; -0.10], EEDS: -0.88 [-1.37; -0.39]). In terms of longitudinal trajectories among women, depressive symptoms increased over time with similar slopes across low, medium and high adherence groups for HDI and MDS. However, for EEDS, high and medium adherence was associated with steeper slopes compared to low adherence. Depressive symptoms were not consistently associated with dietary patterns in men. **Conclusion** Our results suggest a relationship between adherence to healthy dietary patterns and lower depressive symptoms in Czech older women, while there was little evidence on an association in men. The Eastern European diet and its health impacts should be further evaluated. |
| Keywords: | epression; depressive symptoms; ageing; Mediterranean diet; HAPIEE |
| JEL: | I1 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mub:wpaper:2025-08 |
| By: | Alexander Ahammer; Martin Halla; Pia Heckl; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | Long-term unemployment among older workers is particularly difficult to overcome. We study the impacts of a large-scale job guarantee program that offered up to two years of fully subsidized employment to long-term unemployed individuals aged 50 and above. Using a sharp age-based discontinuity in eligibility, we find that participation increased regular, unsubsidized employment by 43 percentage points two years after the program ended. The gains are driven by transitions into new firms and industries, rather than continued subsidized employment, and we find no evidence of displacement effects for non-participants or spillovers to family members. The program had no measurable short-run health effects. |
| Keywords: | Long-term unemployment, temporary job guarantee, subsidized employment, health status |
| JEL: | J64 J08 J78 I14 H51 |
| Date: | 2025–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:jku:econwp:2025-12 |
| By: | Alexander Ahammer; Martin Halla; Pia Heckl; Rudolf Winter-Ebmer |
| Abstract: | Long-term unemployment among older workers is particularly difficult to overcome. We study the impacts of a large-scale job guarantee program that offered up to two years of fully subsidized employment to long-term unemployed individuals aged 50 and above. Using a sharp age-based discontinuity in eligibility, we find that participation increased regular, unsubsidized employment by 43 percentage points two years after the program ended. The gains are driven by transitions into new firms and industries, rather than continued subsidized employment, and we find no evidence of displacement effects for non-participants or spillovers to family members. The program had no measurable short-run health effects. |
| Keywords: | long-term unemployment, temporary job guarantee, subsidized employment, health status |
| JEL: | J64 J08 J78 I14 H51 |
| Date: | 2025 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12340 |
| By: | Oatley, Scott (University of Manchester); Kapadia, Dharmi |
| Abstract: | Social class analysis has been a vital component of sociologists’ research agenda for many decades, informing our understanding of social inequalities. However, current measures of social class are, by their neo-Weberian design determined by employment status and occupation. Consequently, measures of social class that are determined by employment relations restrict sociological understandings of social class to concepts related to working life. The study of later life – research that focuses upon the study of ageing and its impacts – typically focuses on individuals that have left the world of work and have entered a retired or semi-retired portion of their lives. To apply current measures of social class to the study of later life presents several challenges. Sociologists are often forced to use a ‘legacy’ class measure that uses an individual’s last recorded occupation prior to retiring. This is problematic, as legacy occupation may not reflect an individual’s current social class location. This paper seeks to remedy these problems by adopting a Bourdieusian inspired framework based on Capitals, Assets, and Resources (CAR) to construct a relevant social class measure for the study of later life. First, we set a theoretical foundation for the construction of this new measure of social class in later life. Then, using multiple correspondence analysis and latent profile analysis, we identified a five-class model of social class for use in later life. Our five-class model constitutes a small but very privileged Elite; followed by an established middle and culturally engaged high earners which make up a decently sized middle class; most respondents fall into a traditional working class with the rest making up a sizeable precariat class. We find a stark composition of social class membership characterised by a sizeable Traditional Working Class and a large Precariat population with a small middle class and tiny but exceptionally privileged Elite. Our findings from formal statistical modelling on determinants of security, stability, and prospects in later life demonstrate that CAR based approaches present clear points of stratification across social classes. This clarity is possible without having to rely on legacy based measures that are tied to forms of employment relations. We also find evidence to support the use of both legacy and CAR based measures of social class in the analysis of later life. |
| Date: | 2025–12–12 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:c7sra_v1 |