November 2024

Pensions in Aging Asia and the Pacific: Policy Insights and Priorities

By Rafal Chomik, Philip O’Keefe & John Piggott Asia and the Pacific has the most diverse regional pension landscape globally. Yet the region’s pension systems are facing common challenges as they attempt to expand coverage, and ensure adequacy and fairness, while maintaining fiscal sustainability. We review the structures and performance of pension systems across Asia and the Pacific. Most remain characterized by low contributory coverage, social pensions with inadequate benefits and often low (or no) coverage, and informal sector schemes...

October 2024

Well-Being of Older People in East Asia: The People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea

By Hidehiko Ichimura, Xiaoyan Lei, Chulhee Lee, Jinkook Lee, Albert Park, & Yasuyuki Sawada East Asia is undergoing a rapid demographic transition and “super” aging. As a result of steadily decreasing fertility and increasing life expectancy, older people’s proportion of the population and the old-age dependency ratio is rising across all countries in East Asia, particularly in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Japan, and the Republic of Korea (ROK). In this paper, we empirically investigate the well-being of older...

September 2024

When the Abundance Ends: Economic Transformation, Population Aging, and Shrinking Lifecycle Surplus in China

By Feng Wang, Ke Shen & Yong Cai China’s age of abundance, driven by rapid increases in labor income and a favorable population age profile, led to a sizable surplus at the society level. Using the National Transfer Accounts (NTA) approach, this study updates results published in this journal a decade ago. It traces changes in labor income and consumption patterns in China in the 2010s, and compares them with those in the decade prior. Our results report significant shifts...

July 2024

World Population Prospects 2024

By United Nations  The 2024 Revision of World Population Prospects is the twenty-eighth edition of official United Nations population estimates and projections that have been prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat. It presents population estimates from 1950 to the present for 237 countries or areas, underpinned by analyses of historical demographic trends. This latest assessment considers the results of 1,910 national population censuses conducted between 1950 and 2023, as well as...

The Impacts of Raising the Public Pension Eligibility Age on the Lifestyles of Elderly People: Evidence from Japan

By Shinya Inukai With many countries facing rapid population aging, the sustainability of public pensions has become a pressing issue. I evaluate the impacts, including both employment and time allocation, of public pension reform on the lifestyles of the elderly. In Japan, all residents aged 20 or older are covered by the public pension, with eligibility determined mechanically based on age. I focus on the reform raising men's eligibility age from 60 to 61 in 2001 and estimate its impact...

Retirement Decisions in the Age of Covid-19 are Older Employees in Digital Occupations Working Longer?

By Giovanni Gallo & Amparo Nagore This paper investigates the retirement response to the pandemic and to the resulting acceleration in the adoption of new technologies. Using the European Union Statistics of Income and Living Conditions datasets and making use of the natural experiment of many workers being forced to work from home in Europe during the lockdown, we compare the retirement response of older workers in digital occupations (i.e. more exposed to digital technology) versus non-digital occupations to detect...

June 2024

The Aging Experiences of LGBTQ Ethnic Minority Older Adults: A Systematic Review

By Jinwen Chen, Helen McLaren, Michelle Jones & Lida Shams In gerontological research and practice, an increasing amount of attention is being paid to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) older people and how their experiences differ from their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts. However, LGBTQ older adults themselves are not a homogenous group. Moreover, as the immigrant populations in industrialized nations age, the number of LGBTQ older adults from ethnic minority backgrounds will only grow. This systematic review hence...

Health Equity & LGBTQ+ Older Adults of Color. Engaging individuals, communities and organizations

By National Resource Center on LGBTQ+ Aging This report highlights how state, local community organizations, funders and healthcare providers can make innovative impacts in health equity. We are living in a vastly different world than that of 2013, and this section highlights some of the present-day context within which we are doing this work. The United States is becoming older and more diverse. Yet, how we often talk about and intervene on issues related to diversity in aging continues to fall short...

Pioneering Safe & Inclusive LGBT Specific Retirement Accommodation. Exploring Models in the USA, UK, & Spain

By Liam Concannon With significant advances in equal rights for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens, achieved across the western world during the past few decades, one group that continues to be overlooked is LGBT elders. This article examines the unique discrimination and homophobia faced by older LGBT people living in nursing and residential care homes. It investigates ways in which these environments construct and perpetuate heteronormativity by addressing the needs of heterosexual residents, while at the same...

Economic & Budgetary Projections for the EU Member States (2022-2070)

By Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs European Economy Institutional Papers are important reports analysing the economic situation and economic developments prepared by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs, which serve to underpin economic policy-making by the European Commission, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. Views expressed in unofficial documents do not necessarily represent the views of the European Commission. Get the report here