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on Economics of Ageing |
| By: | Neha Bairoliya (University of Southern California); Ray Miller (Colorado State University); Zhixiu Yu (Louisiana State University) |
| Abstract: | Unpaid parental caregiving often arrives when older workers make largely irreversible Social Security benefit claiming decisions. Using the Health and Retirement Study linked to Social Security administrative records, we examine how parental caregiving is related to claiming and labor supply. In married households, caregiving is associated with specialization: when one spouse provides care, the caregiver is 12 percentage points more likely to claim by age 64 and 11 percentage points less likely to work full time, while the non-caregiving spouse is about 10 percentage points less likely to claim early and 10 percentage points more likely to delay retirement. These patterns are robust to rich controls, individual fixed effects, subjective survival beliefs, and an instrumental-variables strategy using the presence of living parents and in-laws. Administrative benefit-type data further show that sole married caregivers are about 10 percentage points more likely to claim spousal benefits consistent with intra-household insurance through Social Security’s spousal provisions. We find no comparable effects of caregiving among non-married individuals. The results suggest that spousal benefits may buffer the retirement-income costs of family caregiving, and that reducing them could weaken this insurance channel. |
| Keywords: | informal care, retirement, Marriage, insurance |
| JEL: | I14 J12 J14 J26 H55 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hka:wpaper:2026-003 |
| By: | Heidi Hartmann; Ana Hernández Kent |
| Abstract: | Social Security benefits for recipients' spouses and ex-spouses often help women, who tend to earn less than men and are likely to have fewer retirement resources. |
| Date: | 2024–04–24 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00100:102726 |
| By: | Cappellari, Lorenzo; Giunta, Andrea Matteo |
| Abstract: | This study uses administrative data on wages and employment to investigate the interaction between two pressing socio-economic challenges: population aging and the working poor. We examine the evolution of low pay across age and cohort. Results for low pay incidence show a U-shaped curve, indicating that close-to-retirement workers are among the most vulnerable in the labor force. Moreover, we find that while the probability of entering low pay is higher for young and older employees, older cohorts exhibit substantial low-pay state dependency, suggesting the presence of a poverty trap. |
| Keywords: | Older workers, working poor, low wage, labour market , Italy |
| JEL: | J31 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:127628 |
| By: | Tuda, Dora (Economic and Social Research Institute); Doorley, Karina (Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin); Sandorova, Simona (Maastricht University) |
| Abstract: | We examine the labour market, welfare receipt and health effects of a reform to the Irish State Pension system which increased the age at which some workers could claim a State Pension. We use longitudinal data on ageing in Ireland and a causal identification strategy based on the random date of birth threshold around which workers with adequate contributions are differently affected by the reform. We find that the reform does not increase the employment probability of those affected. However, we find an increased probability of disability payment receipt for those affected by the reform (+12-13 pp). This effect is robust to extensive sensitivity analysis, multiple hypothesis testing and alternative identification methods. We also find an increase in the probability of receiving unemployment benefit. We find little evidence of worsening mental health outcomes and no effect on subjective or objective physical health outcomes for those affected by the reform. |
| Keywords: | pension age, labour supply, welfare, health |
| JEL: | I10 J14 J18 J26 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18411 |
| By: | Valerija Botric (The Institute of Economics, Zagreb) |
| Abstract: | The paper addresses the issue of skills gap in the context of ageing societies—specifically, the question of to what extent employees perceive the skills gap and whether there are differences between older workers and prime-age workers. The analysis is focused on the EU Mediterranean countries, which enables a comparative perspective, and also aims to compensate for the lack of empirical evidence encompassing smaller economies of the region. By relying on the European skills and jobs survey, it has been established that in most of the countries, prime-age workers are relatively more concerned about the potential inadequacy of their skills than the older workers (older than 55). The narrative remains the same when numerical, social, and technical skills gaps are concerned. While the gap is relatively small and not significant in all the countries, it is still contrary to the dominant narrative claiming lower skill levels of older workers. Decomposing the gap, by relying on the matching of observable characteristics, revealed that the compositional effect of these characteristics is important. |
| Keywords: | older workers, skills gap |
| JEL: | J14 J24 |
| Date: | 2025–11 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iez:wpaper:2501 |
| By: | Raffaele Fiorentino; Simona Mandile |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the unintended consequences of policies perceived as inequitable by leveraging Italy’s Quota 100 pension reform, which denied early retirement to workers with identical contribution histories who did not meet an age cutoff. Using SHARE data and a difference-in-differences design, we first establish that excluded workers experienced no change in unemployment or disability status, while their relative probability of being retired fell mechanically. We then document a significant deterioration in their mental health, with effects emerging immediately upon the reform’s introduction and persisting for at least two years. These effects are concentrated among workers who satisfy the contribution requirement but are denied eligibility solely on the basis of age, implicating perceived unfairness as a primary channel. Using European Social Survey data and a regression discontinuity design, we find that the reform led to a reduction in trust in institutions among age-ineligible workers. Finally, electoral data show that the League, the reform’s principal architect, suffered vote share losses in municipalities with higher concentrations of excluded workers, with penaltiesexceeding any gains accrued in areas with more beneficiaries. |
| Keywords: | pension reform, mental health, perceived unfairness, institutional trust, electoral accountability |
| JEL: | J26 I10 D3 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12518 |
| By: | Ricardo Barahona (BANCO DE ESPAÑA) |
| Abstract: | This paper provides an analysis of Spanish individual pension funds’ financial performance.The evidence presented shows that, like in other investment fund markets around the world, on average individual pension funds do not provide investors with positive risk adjusted returns after subtracting fees. Nevertheless, there is evidence of fund manager skill since, on average, risk adjusted returns before fees are positive and there is persistence in the risk adjusted performance of funds. Additionally, there is evidence that Spanish households respond to fund performance by moving funds to well managed funds. |
| Keywords: | pension funds, defined contribution, mutual funds |
| JEL: | G21 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bde:opaper:2606e |
| By: | Schuurmans, Jitse; De Brabandere, Laura; Castelli, Michele; Wimmer, Sarbina; Denis, Jean-Louis |
| Abstract: | Private investment in residential long-term care has surged around the world. Growing evidence shows that this is changing the institutional logic and the inner workings of the sector, prioritising the financial interests of asset holders above those of other stakeholders (eg. clients, care professionals and regulators). We know little about how policy makers and regulators are responding to private investment and profit-making in the long-term care sector. This paper addresses that gap by analysing policies prompting the growth of private investment and profit-making in residential long-term care, the emerging power struggles in some cases between asset holders and other stakeholders in long-term care, the controversies that have arisen and the concomitant responses of regulators and policy makers in Ontario (Canada), Lombardy (Italy), the Netherlands and England (United Kingdom). We show that the institutional context (eg. legal frameworks, policies and regulations) shapes controversies concerning quality, accessibility and affordability of care, and argue that regulators and policymakers in the constituencies we studied are responding reactively to such controversies rather than proactively anticipating and preventing unwanted effects. Our analysis provides policymakers with valuable insights regarding the regulation and governance of private investment and profit-making in the residential long-term care sector. |
| Keywords: | controversies; policy comparison; residential long-term care; financialisation; regulation |
| JEL: | F3 G3 |
| Date: | 2026–03–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:137554 |
| By: | Ahammer, Alexander (University of Linz); Matic, Lea-Karla (Institute of Economics, Zagreb) |
| Abstract: | Medical spending is highly concentrated at the end of life and varies widely across patients, raising a first-order welfare question about whether marginal end-of-life spending reflects waste or generates meaningful benefits. Using Austrian administrative data, we document that end-of-life spending has grown markedly over time and remains highly dispersed even conditional on diagnosis, with predicted mortality explaining only a small share of the variation. We then study a largely underexplored margin: spillovers onto surviving spouses. Event study estimates show large and persistent changes in spouses’ employment and healthcare use around spousal death. However, these dynamics are essentially invariant to the decedent’s end-of-life spending intensity, a finding that is robust to different measures of spending intensity and to an instrumental variables design exploiting provider-level practice variation. Together, these results are consistent with an important role for inefficiencies in end-of-life care. |
| Keywords: | end-of-life, healthcare expenditure, efficiency, health shock, labor supply |
| JEL: | I10 I11 I12 I14 I18 J12 |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18412 |
| By: | Martinez, Alex; Perona, Mathieu |
| Abstract: | À l’instigation de l’École nationale supérieure de sécurité sociale, nous nous penchons à nouveau sur les évolutions du bien-être à l’âge de la retraite. En effet, si comme le montrent nos travaux précédents, le passage à la retraite est en moyenne neutre en termes de satisfaction dans la vie, comment expliquer la force de l’opposition à un recul de l’âge de départ ? Une comparaison du bien-être des retraités et des personnes en emploi à âge équivalent confirme portant nos constats antérieurs: les écarts sont minimes, et le passage à la retraite ne constitue pas une rupture forte dans le bien-être, à part pour les personnes passant du chômage à la retraite. Nous suggérons deux facteurs pour expliquer l’attrait pour la retraite dans ce contexte. D’une part, les premières années de la retraite ne sont certes pas une période dorée, mais elles constituent un plateau, une pause dans une trajectoire qui va généralement vers un moindre bien-être. Les facteurs de détérioration étant liées aux limitations induites par le vieillissement, le report de l’âge de la retraite signifie une réduction de la durée de ce répit. D’autre part, il ne faut pas négliger l’effet répulsif d’un monde du travail français peu propice au bien-être et à l’épanouissement, et où les seniors peinent à conserver une place. Les deux termes de la question initiale apparaissent ainsi moins contradictoires qu’à première vue. L’attrait pour la retraite serait ainsi moins l’anticipation d’une période idéale que la perspective de quitter une situation professionnelle qui pèse de plus en plus sur la santé et le bien-être. |
| Keywords: | France, Bien-être, Travail, Retraite |
| Date: | 2026–03 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpm:notobe:2606 |