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on Economics of Ageing |
| By: | Claudia Curi; Andreas Dibiasi; Francesco Nicolini; Matteo Ploner; Mirco Tonin |
| Abstract: | Using original survey data from working-age individuals in Northern Italy, we study longevity beliefs and other key knowledge components relevant for retirement decisions. We find substantial dispersion in population longevity beliefs, with 40% of individuals misestimating life expectancy by more than five years, and highly fragmented knowledge across domains. Providing actuarial life expectancy information – tailored by age, gender, and county of residence – does not affect beliefs about individuals’ own longevity or retirement plans, reflecting a disconnect between beliefs about one’s own longevity and that of others. We compare our results with forecasts provided by 262 academic experts. On average, experts accurately anticipate the levels and correlations of longevity literacy with other knowledge components, but they mispredict a strong updating response of own longevity expectations to the provision of population information that deviates markedly from what we observe in the data. |
| Keywords: | subjective longevity, expert forecasts, financial literacy, retirement |
| JEL: | D83 J26 D15 G50 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12907 |
| By: | Toomas Kotkas (UH - University of Helsinki); Philippe Martin (COMPTRASEC - Centre de droit comparé du travail et de la sécurité sociale - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique); Hitomi Nagano (Sophia University [Tokyo]); Marta Navas-Parejo Alonso (UC3M - Universidad Carlos III de Madrid = University of Carlos III of Madrid) |
| Abstract: | It is not uncommon that a country's social welfare system includes separate long-term care schemes for the elderly and for the disabled persons. Often, the separation is based on an age criterion, i.e. if disability is only acquired after certain age, the person is not eligible for special long-term care services for the disabled. However, age-related criteria are problematic on the basis of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The exclusion of a person from special services simply based on their age violates the principle of non-discrimination. At the same time, as the proportion of elderly population in many countries has risen drastically, it is not necessarily financially realistic to assume that the elderly should have the equal right to special disability services which are often free-of-charge or with lower co-payments. This article analyses the policies in five countries whose aim is to solve the discrepancy between the non-discrimination principle and financial sustainability on long-term care schemes. It is argued that despite the different policy choices aimed at tackling the problem of economic sustainability of long-term care schemes, almost all countries are nevertheless still forced to resort to some kind of age criteria. |
| Keywords: | social welfare funding, non-discrimination principle, disabled persons, elderly, Long-term care |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05701847 |
| By: | Astrid Krenz; Holger Strulik |
| Abstract: | Healthy life expectancy is traditionally measured as a population statistic that assigns the same expected healthy remaining lifetime to all individuals of the same age. We develop healthy life expectancy as an individual concept by combining projected health trajectories with survival probabilities conditional on an individual's observed frailty. Using longitudinal data from the Health and Retirement Study, we show that the logarithm of the frailty index increases approximately linearly with age after controlling for permanent individual heterogeneity, implying an exponential law of deficit accumulation. Together with a sex-specific Gompertz mortality model, this regularity provides a simple framework for computing individual healthy life expectancy. The resulting measure reveals substantial heterogeneity in healthy remaining lifetime among individuals of the same age. Although sex, education, geography, and race and ethnicity are associated with systematic differences, most variation occurs within rather than between these groups. |
| Keywords: | healthy life expectancy, health data, frailty index, health inequality |
| JEL: | I10 I12 J10 J11 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12867 |
| By: | Russo, Nicolò; McGee, Rory; De Nardi, Mariacristina; Borella, Margherita; Abram, Ross |
| Abstract: | We measure health inequality during middle and old age by race, ethnicity, and gender and evaluate the extent to which it can explain inequalities in other key economic outcomes using the Health and Retirement Study data set. Our main measure of health is frailty, which is the fraction of one's possible health deficits and is related to biological age. We find staggering health inequality: At age 55, Black men and women have the frailty, or biological age, of White men and women 13 and 20 years older, respectively, while Hispanic men and women exhibit frailty akin to White men and women 5 and 6 years older. The health deficits composing frailty reveal that most health deficits are more likely for Black and Hispanic people than for White people, with the notable exception of those requiring a diagnosis. Imputing medical diagnoses to Black and Hispanic people uncovers even larger health gaps, especially for Black men. Health inequality also emerges as a powerful determinant of economic inequality. If Black individuals at age 55 had the health of their White peers, the life expectancy gap between these two groups would halve, and the gap in disability duration would decrease by 40-70%. Other outcomes are similarly affected by health at age 55, indicating that targeted health interventions for minority groups before middle age could substantially reduce economic disparities in the quantity and quality of life. |
| Keywords: | Health; Race; Inequality |
| JEL: | D11 I14 H31 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19529 |
| By: | Martijn de Werd; Bertrand Achou; Ki Wai Chau |
| Abstract: | Recent empirical evidence shows that a significant amount of wealth is bequeathed at the death of the first spouse. We study both theoretically and quantitatively how couples’ retirement portfolio of annuities and life insurance is affected by such side bequests. We show that life-contingent products allow couples to smooth their side bequests as they enable to make the latter independent of which spouse dies first. We also show that side bequests reduce the wealth left to the surviving spouse while raising the demand for life insurance (or reducing the demand for annuities). Quantitatively, we find that side bequests have a sizable impact on the demand for annuities: annuity participation is 28 percentage points lower for married women and 41 percentage points lower for married men. Finally, we find that side bequests modify the distribution of welfare gains from having access to life-contingent products and that incorrectly omitting side bequest motives in the design of optimal portfolio strategies comes at large welfare costs. |
| Keywords: | Life-Cycle Investment, Life Insurance, Annuities, Savings, Retirement Portfolio, Couple Dynamics, Bequest Motives. |
| JEL: | C61 D14 D15 G11 G22 G51 G52 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rsi:irersi:25 |
| By: | Russo, N.;; McGee, R.;; De Nardi, M.;; Borella, M.;; Abram, R.; |
| Abstract: | Health shapes a broad set of later-life outcomes that are central to macroeconomics and public policy, including disability receipt, retirement, long -term care use, and survival. Yet we know little about how much differences in midlife health contribute to disparities in these outcomes later in life by race, ethnicity, and gender. Using the Health and Retirement Study, we construct a measure of health based on frailty and document large disparities at midlife. Black men and women have frailty levels at age 55 comparable to those of White men and women who are 13 and 20 years older, respectively, while the corresponding gaps for Hispanic men and women are 8 and 12 years. We then estimate a dynamic system linking health at age 55 to subsequent outcomes. Equalizing the distribution of health at age 55 across groups substantially reduces disparities in time spent in poor health, disability benefit receipt, and nursing home residence. Importantly, midlife health can account for later -life disparities more than education, health insurance coverage, and marital status jointly. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:yor:hectdg:26/18 |
| By: | Borella, Margherita; Bullano, Francisco; De Nardi, Mariacristina; Krueger, Benjamin; Manresa, Elena |
| Abstract: | While health affects many economic outcomes, its dynamics are still poorly understood. We use k-means clustering, a machine learning technique, and data from the Health and Retirement Study to identify health types during middle and old age. We identify five health types: the vigorous resilient, the fair-health resilient, the fair-health vulnerable, the frail resilient, and the frail vulnerable. They are characterized by different starting health and health and mortality trajectories. Our five health types account for 84% of the variation in health trajectories and are not explained by observable characteristics, such as age, marital status, education, gender, race, health-related behaviors, and health insurance status, but rather, by one’s past health dynamics. We also show that health types are important drivers of health and mortality heterogeneity and dynamics. Our results underscore the importance of better understanding health type formation and of modeling it appropriately to properly evaluate the effects of health on people’s decisions and the implications of policy reforms. |
| Keywords: | Health; Life expectancy |
| JEL: | H10 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19434 |
| By: | Ziegler, Lennart (Central European University) |
| Abstract: | How strongly do employer age preferences restrict the hiring of older workers? I study Austrian job postings, in which employers could openly state age limits until the practice was banned in 2004. Age limits were both widespread and strict: more than 30 percent of vacancies stated an upper age limit, and most caps were set between age 40 and 55. To assess the impact of the ban, I link the vacancies to administrative data on applicants and hired workers, predict each job's age requirement from pre-ban postings of the same firm and occupation and compare jobs with stronger and weaker predicted restrictions over time. After the ban, previously restrictive jobs attracted older applicants and hired older workers, with larger effects at the application stage than at the hiring stage. Wages, job duration, sickness absence and vacancy filling duration remained unaffected. In the ad texts, employers replaced direct references to young workers with attributes commonly associated with youth. Taken together, these results suggest that employers hold overly pessimistic beliefs about older workers and partially revise them once a broader pool of applicants emerges. |
| Keywords: | vacancies, age discrimination, screening and hiring |
| JEL: | J63 J14 J23 J24 J68 J71 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18866 |
| By: | Jannik Reinbold; Thomas Steger |
| Abstract: | Higher atmospheric carbon concentrations increase extreme heat on both the extensive and intensive margins. We develop a stochastic life-cycle model in which daily heat shocks raise mortality risk, agents adapt to protect themselves, and health investment slows biological aging. We calibrate it to U.S. data and study the incidence of a major damage channel — heat-induced mortality — showing how exogenous differences in wage income generate unequal welfare losses across the income distribution. Comparing life-cycle outcomes under daily heat-shock distributions associated with SSP5-8.5 to an SSP1-2.6 benchmark, the average agent loses about 0.10 years of life expectancy, and the loss is regressive: 0.31 years for the poorest income decile against 0.05 years for the richest. Welfare losses are substantial and likewise regressive: 0.90% in CEV on average, ranging from 1.23% for the poorest decile to 0.60% for the richest, and conditional on survival to age 50, from 6.48% to 1.32%. Poor agents lose mainly through reduced survival, richer agents through consumption forgone to adaptation. Absent adaptation, both losses are far larger and almost flat in income, so adaptation accounts for essentially the entire income gradient. Climate denial raises welfare losses most among high-income agents. |
| Keywords: | daily heat shocks, mortality, adaptation, biological aging, life-cycle model, welfare, Incidence, climate denial |
| JEL: | I14 Q54 D63 D15 J17 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12885 |
| By: | Zhang, Jingna |
| Abstract: | Can a public pension change how rural households transfer farmland? We study China’s New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS), exploiting its age-60 eligibility threshold in a fuzzy regressiondiscontinuity design applied to three waves of the China Family Panel Studies (2014–2018), with identification coming from individual older-member pension receipt. Pension receipt raises the probability that a household rents out farmland, and the response is concentrated entirely on market-oriented transfer: paid rental-out rises sharply while zero-rent rental-out, a proxy for nonmonetized relational transfer, does not move. The market-side response is largest among households with the weakest cultural and structural ties to kin and village, for whom relational transfer carries the lowest implicit cost. The estimates are robust to controls for child remittance, off-farm labor, and non-farm income, and we find no contemporaneous discontinuity in private kin transfers. Pension income thus does more than relax the household budget: it shifts the institutional form of land transfer from relational support toward market-oriented exchange. Social insurance, in this setting, operates as a land-market institution. |
| Keywords: | Agricultural and Food Policy |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aaea26:404387 |
| By: | Ono, Takazumi; Costantini, Hiroko; Kumagaya, Shinichiro; Sugawara, Ikuko; Iijima, Katsuya; Nihei, Misato |
| Abstract: | Social relationships with surrounding people and an individual's autonomy are fundamental components of age-friendly community and long-term care (LTC). The objective of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Tolerance of Surroundings Scale (TSS) and Autonomy Scales (AS) among people with LTC needs. We distributed a self-administered questionnaire to four daycare/day-services facilities and three home-visit nurse stations in Japan. The TSS consists of 20 items under 4 factors and the AS includes 20 items based on 3 factors. These scales were previously validated in the Japanese general population. 259 people participated in the survey. Confirmatory factor analysis demonstrated model fit for the TSS was good, whereas that for the AS was acceptable. In addition, explanatory factor analysis demonstrated that the AS had 2-factor structure specified for people with LTC. The regression coefficients for subjective well-being were 0.43 (95%CI 0.23, 0.62) and 0.73 (95%CI 0.50, 0.96), respectively. The alphas in the TSS and the AS ranged from 0.75 to 0.88, from 0.53 to 0.91, respectively. The alphas of the AS in first and second factors specified for people with LTC needs were 0.91 and 0.70, respectively. In conclusion, the TSS and the AS were valid and reliable in people with LTC needs. However, regarding the AS, different factor structures should be used (the structure in general population and that specified in people with LTC needs) depending on the purpose of the assessment. In addition, further studies to assess test-retest reliability and measurement error are needed. |
| Date: | 2026–07–31 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:td3gu_v1 |
| By: | Hongseok Choi; Jeongbin Kim; Matthew Kovach; Kyu-Min Lee; Euncheol Shin; Hector Tzavellas |
| Abstract: | We study how differences in AI-generated financial recommendations are transmitted into individual portfolio choices. In an experiment with 400 employed adults enrolled in workplace defined contribution pension plans in South Korea, participants allocate a hypothetical pension balance across eleven products and may revise it after receiving one of two fixed AI-generated recommendations. A $2 \times 2$ design randomizes recommendation content and whether the recommendation includes a short rationale. Approximately 37$\%$ of the experimentally induced difference between the aggressive and conservative recommendations passes through to final portfolios. This causal contrast changes expected portfolio return, volatility, allocations across risk grades, and the number of products held, but produces no detectable difference in computed Sharpe ratios. 81$\%$ of participants revise. Among revisers, 95$\%$ move toward the assigned recommendation and implement about half of the suggested adjustment. Rationales do not detectably alter pass-through. These results show that users partially and selectively transmit recommendation content into economically meaningful differences in risk exposure while retaining substantial weight on their initial choices. |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2608.11371 |
| By: | Jhorland Ayala-García; Jaime Alfredo Bonet-Moron; Eduardo Haddad; Inácio Araújo |
| Abstract: | Around the world, demographic transitions are reshaping consumption patterns and influencing environmental outcomes. In Colombia, demographic change is expected to alter household spending, reducing demand in sectors such as education and transportation while increasing consumption in healthcare. These shifts have implications for energy demand and CO₂ emissions. This study examines the relationship between demographic change and consumption behavior across age groups, using data from the 2016-2017 National Household Budget Survey and age-specific projections for 2020-2050. We use Seemingly Unrelated Regression models to estimate sectoral consumption shares based on population age and project the sector specific trends to 2050. A regional input-output model is then applied to assess the impact of projected changes in consumption on total CO₂ emissions. Findings suggest a national decline in emissions by 2050, though regional disparities emerge: Bogotá and the Central-East region may see increases, while other regions are projected to experience reductions.*****ABSTRACT: Around the world, demographic transitions are reshaping consumption patterns and influencing environmental outcomes. In Colombia, demographic change is expected to alter household spending, reducing demand in sectors such as education and transportation while increasing consumption in healthcare. These shifts have implications for energy demand and CO₂ emissions. This study examines the relationship between demographic change and consumption behavior across age groups, using data from the 2016-2017 National Household Budget Survey and age-specific projections for 2020-2050. We use Seemingly Unrelated Regression models to estimate sectoral consumption shares based on population age and project the sector specific trends to 2050. A regional input-output model is then applied to assess the impact of projected changes in consumption on total CO₂ emissions. Findings suggest a national decline in emissions by 2050, though regional disparities emerge: Bogotá and the Central-East region may see increases, while other regions are projected to experience reductions. |
| Keywords: | Demographic change, Consumption patterns, CO₂ emissions, Population aging, climate change, Cambio demográfico, Patrones de consumo, Emisiones de CO₂, Envejecimiento de la población, Cambio climatico |
| JEL: | Q56 J11 D12 R15 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bdr:region:348 |
| By: | Seth G. Benzell; Laurence J. Kotlikoff; Victor Yifan Ye |
| Abstract: | This study deploys a multi-region, dynamic life-cycle, general equilibrium model to assess demography’s impact, through the course of this century, on global development. Our model’s 17 regions encompass more than 150 countries comprising 99% of the world’s population. Output is produced with three labor skill groups and internationally-mobile capital, with each country deciding annually whether to adopt its frontier automation technology. Our model features region-specific fiscal policy, TFP growth, and idiosyncratic mortality. Agents live for 100 years, first as children, then as workers, and then as retirees. Work and saving decisions are governed by CES preferences. Lifespan is uncertain, but there are no annuities apart from state pensions. Hence, bequests, while significant, are unintended. Our fertility, mortality, and net immigration rates are region- and age-specific and align fully with the UN’s projections. To illustrate demographics’ power to impact the global transition, we simulate our model under the UN’s markedly different demographic projections for 2017 and 2024. The 2024 forecast is particularly pessimistic about China’s fertility prospects. Both projections produce very substantial global aging, a major global capital glut producing very low long-run real capital returns. The latest forecast entails 10% lower global GDP in 2100 and far higher payroll tax rates to fund old-age benefits. Most important, it entails a major change in the course of economic hegemony with China’s 2100 global GDP share falling from 25.6% to 14.9% and the US share rising from 11.2% to 14.4%. Our results are sensitive. Should the US eliminate all future immigration, its 14.4% global 2100 GDP share would drop to 9.2%. And were global fertility to follow the UN’s low variant, 2100 world output would be one third, not one tenth lower. The level and division of global output is also highly sensitive to the speed at which AI expands frontier technologies. Accelerated AU/AI – 4x faster-than-recent growth in capital’s share through 2050 – or Transformative AU/AI – 10x faster capital-share growth – reinforce demographic forces, ensuring long-run US economic hegemony. Indeed, Transformative AI combined with 2024 demographics implies US and Chinese 2100 global GDP shares of 25.3% and 16.9%, respectively. And not withstanding its considerable technological catch up, the US retains, based on our calibration, a technological edge over China throughout the century. |
| JEL: | E10 E13 E60 F19 F47 H2 J1 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:35618 |
| By: | Hansen, Casper Worm; Strulik, Holger |
| Abstract: | A strong regularity of human life is Gompertz's law, which predicts a near-perfect exponential increase in mortality with age. In this paper, we take into account that chronological age is not a cause of death and decompose Gompertz's law into two equally strong laws: (i) an exponential increase in health deficits as measured by the frailty index, and (ii) a power law association between the frailty index and the mortality rate. We show how the increase in the frailty index can be derived from the feature of self-productivity of health deficits. We explore the robustness of the Gompertz decomposition across countries, gender, and over time and show how information about mortality rates can be used to infer the state of health of an age-structured population. Finally, we use this method to infer the biological ages of past populations, such as Australian men in 1940 and Swedish men in 1770. |
| JEL: | O10 O50 J10 |
| Date: | 2024–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19353 |
| By: | Yong Tu; Yaopei Wang; Yumeng Yang; Yi Fan |
| Abstract: | Over the past decade, governments around the world have made significant investments in creating elderly-friendly urban environments within local neighborhoods. However, the lack of a standardized evaluation framework for Ageing-in-Place (AIP) practices makes it challenging to generalize these experiences. First, we compare the AIP models of the U.S.- San Francisco, Japan-Tokyo, and Singapore using a cost-benefit analysis, demonstrating the comparative advantage of the Singapore model in terms of low cost and high accessibility for the independent ageing population. Second, we propose a spatial analytics framework to visualize and quantify the degree of alignment between a basket of ageing facilities and the active ageing population, enabling a data-driven, timely evaluation of the effectiveness of Singapore's AIP policies. Singapore's AIP model, either in its entirety or as a hybrid with other models, can be generalized to other global cities, providing valuable insights for optimal elderly-friendly urban planning. |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2607.17649 |