nep-age New Economics Papers
on Economics of Ageing
Issue of 2025–07–21
eleven papers chosen by
Claudia Villosio, LABORatorio R. Revelli


  1. Job Loss and Retirement By Nassal, Lea
  2. Extending Healthspans in an Aging World By Stephen P. Utkus; Olivia S. Mitchell
  3. Immigration and Adult Children's Care for Elderly Parents: Evidence from Western Europe By Berlanda, Andrea; Lodigiani, Elisabetta; Rocco, Lorenzo
  4. Co-residence with Adult Children and Elderly Mental Health: Evidence from India By Lakshmi Ullas; Amrita Chatterjee
  5. The Longevity of Older Wives and Their Husbands: Comparing Actual Couples with Synthetic Couples By Janice Compton; Robert A. Pollak; Seth G. Sanders
  6. Evolution of widowhood lifespan and its gender and educational inequalities in Finland over three decades By Moretti, Margherita; Korhonen, Kaarina; van Raalte, Alyson A; Riffe, Tim; Martikainen, Pekka
  7. Comparative pension reform pathways in Latin America and Southern Europe: a tale of successes, failures, and future challenges By Angelaki, Marina; Carrera, Leandro Nicolas
  8. Living Smaller, Consuming More? The Energy Implications of Aging and Shrinking Households in Spain By Jesus Ramos-Martin; Shigeru Matsumoto
  9. Impacto de la legislación en la distribución de la riqueza: Evidencia global de las herencias y el ahorro By Cioinac, Elena
  10. Housing Trends: Older Households Are Moving Less, and Multigenerational Living Is Rising By Samantha dup Shampine
  11. U.S. Retirement Normalization following the COVID-19 Pandemic By Serdar Birinci; Miguel Faria-e-Castro; Gus Gerlach; Kurt See

  1. By: Nassal, Lea (University of Warwick)
    Abstract: This paper provides the first evidence of the long-term effects of job loss on age at retirement, pension benefits and lifetime income. Exploiting plant closures and using German administrative data, I compare displaced workers with similar non-displaced workers. I show that displaced workers delay their retirement in response to the shock and ineligibility for early pension claims is the main driver of this response. Despite adjustments in retirement behavior, displaced workers face significant losses in pension benefits and lifetime income. Compared to similar non-displaced workers, displaced workers experience losses in the present discounted value of their lifetime income of 25%.
    Keywords: job loss ; plant closure ; retirement JEL codes: J18 ; J26 ; J63 ; J65
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:1565
  2. By: Stephen P. Utkus; Olivia S. Mitchell
    Abstract: Extensions in human longevity are prompting a growing interest in maximizing healthspan, or the number of years of life unencumbered by the chronic diseases of old age. This chapter reviews recent research on healthy life extension, including several measures and determinants of longer healthspans. We also provide an overview of recent efforts by medical and business enterprises to enhance longevity and healthspan, followed by a discussion of policy and workplace options to foster healthier lives. Such efforts hold the promise of improving quality of life, expanding labor supply, and lowering the cost of health care costs associated with population aging.
    JEL: I12 I24 J11 J14 J16
    Date: 2025–07
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33992
  3. By: Berlanda, Andrea (University of Padua); Lodigiani, Elisabetta (University of Padova); Rocco, Lorenzo (University of Padova)
    Abstract: In this paper, we use the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), complemented with register data on the share of the foreign population in the European regions, to examine the effects of migration on the level of informal care provided by children to their senior parents. Our main results show that migration decreases informal care among daughters with a university degree, while it increases the provision of informal care among daughters with low-to-medium levels of education. Viceversa, migration has practically no effect on sons' care provision who remain little involved in care activities. These results depend on the combination of two supply effects. First, migration increases the supply of domestic and personal services, making formal care more affordable and available. Second, as immigrants compete with low-to-medium-educated native workers, while improve the labor market opportunities of the better educated, the supply of informal care can increase among the less educated daughters and decrease among the more educated.
    Keywords: immigration, home production, caregiving, Europe
    JEL: F22 J14 J22
    Date: 2025–07
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17984
  4. By: Lakshmi Ullas (Madras School of Economics, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 600025); Amrita Chatterjee ((corresponding author) Madras School of Economics, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, 600025)
    Abstract: Ageing is associated with increased vulnerabilities, decline in social skills and other capabilities. Prevalence of depression among elderly people is much higher in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) and adult children are considered as the primary care givers in these countries. It is the general perception that co-residence with adult children facilitates their daily activities and provide financial support. International literature shows mixed results in this context though Indian studies are showing the positive impact of co-residence with adult children on mental health of elderly patents. However, no study corrects the possible endogeneity in the relationship neither they explore the possible role of formal and informal health care services in mental health-co-residence relationship. The current study examines the effect of co-residence with children on the mental health of elderly people in the age category of 60 and above using Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI) 2017-18. After correcting for endogeneity through Propensity Score Matching and Instrumental Variable method, the results suggest that elderly parents living with their children are less likely to be in a state of depression. However, this relationship crucially depends on the formal or informal health care the parents need.
    Keywords: Ageing population; Mental health; Living arrangement: LASI
    JEL: J14 I12 J11
    Date: 2025–06
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mad:wpaper:2025-284
  5. By: Janice Compton; Robert A. Pollak; Seth G. Sanders
    Abstract: Using data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), we construct two measures of the longevity of older wives and husbands. For definiteness, we focus on couples in which the wife was 60 and the husband 62 in 1988. Our first measure utilizes a 4 x 4 "longevity matrix" in which the bins correspond to the decades in which the spouses died. For example, an entry in the (3, 2) bin indicates that the wife died in the 3rd decade (between ages 80 and 89) and the husband in the second decade (between ages 72 and 81). Our second measures use the Gompertz distribution to estimate the censored observations from the NHIS. We use the Gompertz estimates of age-specific mortalities to construct joint and survivor life expectancies for the couples in our working sample. We compare the longevity estimates based on actual couples from the NHIS with estimates based on synthetic couples constructed from the 1988 CDC life tables. Research based on randomly formed synthetic couples constructed from CDC life table data shows that the randomness of mortality and the overlap between spouses' age-specific mortality distributions imply dramatically long life spans for surviving spouses. The 4 x 4 longevity matrices show that longevity effects are magnified at the level of the couple by assortative marriage.
    JEL: J10 J12 J14 J19
    Date: 2025–06
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33931
  6. By: Moretti, Margherita (Bocconi University); Korhonen, Kaarina; van Raalte, Alyson A (Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research); Riffe, Tim; Martikainen, Pekka
    Abstract: Widowhood is a disruptive life event, and in ageing societies, increased numbers of individuals are potentially exposed to it. Yet we lack a comprehensive understanding of the demography of widowhood. Using total population data with information on marital and cohabiting unions, discrete-time event history analysis and incidence-based multistate lifetables, we analyse lifetime risk of widowhood, mean age at becoming widowed, widowhood expectancy, and variation in years spent widowed, and document gender and educational differences in these metrics over the last three decades in Finland. Our results show that, over time, individuals are less likely to experience widowhood, and when they do, it occurs at older ages. Women have higher widowhood risk, expectancy, and a lower mean age at widowhood than men. Widowhood expectancy for women declined from 8 to 6 years, while for men, it stagnated at around 2 years. Low-educated women faced more widowhood years than highly educated, while the opposite holds for men. By showing decreased risks, delayed onset, and shorter widowhood expectancy, particularly among women, our results suggest that the current older population may experience reduced exposure to the psychosocial and financial challenges of widowhood, with potentially reduced caregiving burden on families and the state.
    Date: 2025–07–04
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:2q6fu_v1
  7. By: Angelaki, Marina; Carrera, Leandro Nicolas
    Abstract: Latin American and South European countries share a common policy legacy of public Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) pension systems, yet reform paths taken over the past decades between and within the two regions have varied. Latin American countries opted for the full or partial privatization of their public pension systems, yet subsequent reforms have challenged the public–private mix. Meanwhile, countries in Southern Europe opted for a less radical path, entailing different degrees of reform of their public pillars and the introduction of supplementary private ones. Our analysis focuses on Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay – in Latin America – and Spain, Italy, and Greece – in Southern Europe – and the reforms implemented since 1990. In understanding reform variation, we argue that by focusing on the role of political institutions and policy legacies, it is possible to identify reform mechanisms.
    Keywords: Latin America; Southern Europe; institutions; policy legacies; pension reform
    JEL: R14 J01
    Date: 2025–07–02
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ehl:lserod:128623
  8. By: Jesus Ramos-Martin (Departament d'Economia i d'Història Econòmica, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona); Shigeru Matsumoto (College of Economics, Aoyama Gakuin University)
    Abstract: Accurate projections of residential energy consumption are crucial for achieving decarbonization targets; however, most models overlook demographic dynamics—particularly changes in household composition—which significantly impact energy demand. This study addresses this gap by integrating demographic projections into bottom-up energy forecasts for Spain's residential sector from 2021 to 2039. Using microdata from the Household Budget Survey and disaggregating households into nine types based on size and age structure, the model captures heterogeneous energy use patterns and their evolution over time. Results show that the increasing prevalence of single-person and elderly households, which are less efficient due to reduced economies of scale, offsets much of the expected energy savings from technological improvements. Compared to aggregate models, this disaggregated approach yields more conservative estimates: while per-household and per-capita consumption decline, total residential energy use may increase slightly unless stronger efficiency gains are achieved. To meet Spain’s target of a 1.69% annual reduction in residential energy use by 2030, per-household energy consumption must decrease by over 3.4% annually—more than double the historical rate. These findings highlight the critical role of demographic structure in shaping energy demand and underscore the limitations of conventional modeling approaches. By incorporating household composition into projections, this research enhances the accuracy of energy scenarios and provides evidence for the need to align housing and energy policies with demographic trends. Targeted strategies—such as promoting smaller, energy-efficient dwellings and accelerating building retrofits—are essential for achieving climate goals in an aging and increasingly fragmented society.
    Keywords: Households, residential energy consumption, household type distribution, energy consumption scenarios, ageing, behavioral changes
    JEL: D10 I31 J11 Q41 Q57
    Date: 2025–07
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:aub:uhewps:2025_02
  9. By: Cioinac, Elena
    Abstract: Currently, intergenerational and intragenerational economic inequality has gained significant relevance due to the recent growing concentration of wealth, largely driven by the inheritance system and the accumulation of family assets. The Inheritance Tax, which is delegated to the Autonomous Communities, has generated significant fiscal disparities among citizens from different regions. These differences have led some heirs to renounce their inheritance due to the inability to afford the tax burden imposed in their respective communities. Furthermore, wealth accumulation occurs not only through inheritances but also through personal savings, pension plans, and financial investments, further exacerbating inequality within the same generation. This situation has fuelled debates on tax fairness and sparked social movements demanding the harmonization of the tax at the national level. Experts argue that a regulatory reform is necessary to ensure a fairer distribution of inherited and accumulated wealth, preventing fiscal decentralization from deepening intergenerational and intragenerational inequalities.
    Keywords: inheritance tax, intergenerational and intragenerational inequality, wealth concentration, savings, investments, tax reform.
    JEL: D31
    Date: 2025–06
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:125142
  10. By: Samantha dup Shampine
    Abstract: The rate at which older households changed residences dropped 11.1% from 2019 to 2023, while the decline among younger households was 7.8%. On average, older households have 2.4 bedroom per person in the home. The number of households in which adult children have moved in with their parents is increasing rapidly.
    Keywords: household mobility; multigenerational living; housing market; multifamily housing; accessory dwelling units
    JEL: R21 R31
    Date: 2025–07–08
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedbcq:101207
  11. By: Serdar Birinci; Miguel Faria-e-Castro; Gus Gerlach; Kurt See
    Abstract: After surging when the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S., retirements have returned to their prepandemic trend. New research examines what caused this surge.
    Keywords: COVID-19; retirements
    Date: 2025–07–14
    URL: https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:l00001:101255

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