April 2024

China’s unique retirement plan: why children still matter when it comes to support in old age

At the end of last year, the number of people in China aged 65 and above reached 217 million, making up 15.4 per cent of the total population. This has led to concerns that with rapid ageing, the existing pension system may fail to keep pace. As a result, elderly people have turned to raising children to look after them in their old age. This is commonly known as yang er fang lao. Here, the Post explains the phenomenon. What is it ? Simply put yang...

Perception of when old age starts has increased over time, shows study

None of us are getting any younger, but it appears the age at which we are considered old has moved upwards over the generations. What’s more, as adults get older, they shift the goalposts further still, a study has shown. The researchers behind the study said the upward shift could be down to increases in life expectancy and retirement age, as well as other factors. “We should be aware that conceptions and perceptions of ‘old’ change across historical time, and that people...

Aging population to drive down Korea’s housing prices from 2040: experts

South Korea's housing prices are expected to see a long-term decline starting in 2040, hit by the nation’s falling birth rate and quickly aging society, according to experts who joined a Seoul seminar hosted by construction project management firm Hanmi Global on Tuesday. "In 2025, South Korea will become a superaging society with an over-65 population surpassing 10 million, which will account for more than 20 percent of the country's total population. Due to the aging population and overall decline...

Living to 95 may impact the world as much as AI and climate change

You need an 'evergreen' approach to life, work and health, economics professor Andrew Scott says In the first session of his world economy class at the London Business School, economics professor Andrew Scott asked students to name the trends that will transform their lives and careers over the next several decades. Artificial intelligence and climate change sparked much discussion among his students. Meanwhile, the trend of demographic change and "more old people" was seen as a negative. In his new book, "The...

Less than half of Malaysians are insured as we become an ageing society

Less than 50% of Malaysians are insured, according to insurance industry players. They said that getting insurance is especially important for the public to shield themselves from unexpected illnesses in old age as the country moves toward an ageing society. Insurance industry players said medical claim payouts had increased in the last two years, with a surge of 14.9%, from RM13.4bil in 2022 to RM15.4bil last year. They also pointed to the 41.4% hike in disability payments and a 26.2% rise in...

The Future of a Hyper-Aging Society Navigated by Well-Being Technology

Today, humanity is experiencing a paradigm shift and transitioning to a new era. We live in a world where every person’s well-being - the happiness of the body and mind - is impacted by social environments born of numerous changes, including an aging and increasingly diverse society, changes to how and where we work, and outbreaks of emerging diseases. This changing panorama is raising people’s interest in well-being technology, as well as its value and importance. “Well-being technology” describes...

Why richer, older China needs changes to its social contract

No one likes getting old. The pains and strains of becoming elderly wear on us. The worries about how to ensure we can provide for ourselves in old age looms largest of all, as countries’ birth rates fall Nowhere feels this more acutely than China, where a staggering 300 million peopleminimal or no pensionsmaller families The challenges are multifaceted. The government needs to build out rather than restrict the social safety net of pensions and healthcare for this growing segment of the country’s...

U.S. More people are working well past retirement age. It’s not easy

Hope Murray retired in 2013 after a 50-year career that ranged from game show producer to Hollywood party planner to casino executive. She settled into a life of golf, game nights and pickleball in her San Diego community, her daughter living nearby. Then things got more expensive. Gas was nearly $5 a gallon, medication costs were adding up, the grocery bill was increasing. So she downsized, stopped driving as much and waited longer between haircuts. But she could no longer afford some of...

March 2024

Older Workers, Pension Reforms and Firm Outcomes

By Francesca Carta, Francesco D’Amuri & Till Von Wachter Using Italian matched worker-firm data, this paper quantifies the effect of an exogenous increase in older workers driven by an unexpected raise in statutory retirement ages on medium and large firms' input mix and economic outcomes. Data on lifetime pension contributions are used to calculate the expected additional number of older workers retained by each firm due to the pension reform. Instrumental variable estimates show an increase in older workers leads...

Nursing homes can’t meet the care needs of an aging population

Where are we going to get the workers to care for us? How are we going to pay them? Long-term care is one of the major challenges facing an aging society. Care can take the form of a nursing home, formal care provided in the community or home, or informal care provided by family or friends. KFF recently released a really nice summary of the state of play on the nursing home front in the process of describing a proposed rule...