November 2023
14Nov

Malaysia. Pension system needs upgrading as nation heads towards ‘super-aged society’

MALAYSIA is undergoing a significant demographic shift towards an ageing population.  The World Bank has projected that with 14% of the population aged 65 and above by 2044, it will officially be an “aged society”. By 2056, Malaysia is expected to become a “super-aged society”, with over 20% of its population in that category.  While this brings challenges in areas such as employment, income security and aged care, the shift also presents economic opportunities, particularly in the field of aged care services.  Meanwhile,...

November 14, 2023
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13Nov

Kenyan Aging Study Aids Sub-Saharan Africa’s Population Shift

The population of Africa is the youngest in the world-but that is expected to change rapidly in the coming decades. Over the next three decades, the proportion of older Africans will triple across the continent. This population will nearly quadruple in Kenya, one of the most rapidly aging countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. And yet demographers report that robust longitudinal data to address the economic and health-related consequences of this demographic transition are largely missing. The Longitudinal Study of Health and Ageing in Kenya (LOSHAK), a...

November 13, 2023
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10Nov

In search of financially sustainable pension systems: three benchmark models

By Ekaterina Cuéllar, Daniel Gamboa & Waldo Tapia  One of the great dilemmas facing countries around the world is to define a pension system that is financially sustainable in the face of increasing life expectancy, falling fertility rates and the consequent lack of generational replacement. Globally, pension reforms in countries with more advanced aging processes have focused on implementing parametric reforms and incorporating automatic adjustments of the main parameters to share productivity, financial and demographic risks. In this article we present the advantages...

November 10, 2023
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10Nov

U.S. Population Will Start Shrinking by 2100, Census Bureau Forecasts

The population of the U.S. will climb to about 370 million in 2080 before reversing course and starting to fall before the turn of the century, according to a new Census Bureau projection. By 2100, the U.S. will have a population of around 366 million people, unless immigration continues to climb each year, in which case the population could reach as high as 435 million, the bureau forecas U.S. House Votes to Censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib Over Israel Stance In the implausible...

November 10, 2023
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06Nov

Africa could come to the rescue of the aging world

Big change is coming to the world. This is not entirely because of global warming. Change is also occurring because of a sharp decline in the rate of human fertility. In the developed world, women are having fewer children than ever before. Demographers have determined 2.1 children per woman as a critical threshold below which the size of the population would begin to decline. In North America, Europe and Australia the rate is well below this level with the...

November 6, 2023
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03Nov

Aging, Healthcare System, and Interest Rates

By Reona Hagiwara Over the past few decades, the Japanese economy has experienced the widening gap between returns on liquid bonds and illiquid capital (i.e., the liquidity premium) due to a secular decline in the real interest rate and a slight increase in the capital return. This paper explores the role of the health or medical expenditure risk in the increase in the premium, using a general equilibrium overlapping generations model with heterogeneous agents that differ in health status and...

November 3, 2023
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October 2023
31Oct

Number of working Korean women in 30s surges amid low fertility rate

The recent trend of an increase in the proportion of working women in their 30s was primarily due to a reduction in the number of women with children, according to a report released Monday by the Korea Development Institute, a South Korean state-run think tank. Kim Ji-yeon, a researcher at the KDI, noted that although the drop in the number of women in their 30s that have children may seem like a positive factor in the short term because it...

October 31, 2023
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25Oct

Korea sees accelerating drop in birth rate

The number of babies born in Korea in August plummeted to the lowest level in nearly three years, data showed, Wednesday, heightening concerns of a looming demographic crisis driven by the world’s lowest fertility rate, decline in marriage and aging population. Statistics Korea said a total of 18,984 babies were born in August, down 12.8 percent from a year earlier. It marks the steepest year-on-year decline since November 2020, when the number of childbirths dipped 15.5 percent. The latest tally also marks...

October 25, 2023
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25Oct

Retirees tend to be happier than younger people — even if their finances aren’t great

Much of the work we do suggests that people are not saving enough for retirement. More specifically, since 2006 we have published our National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI), which uses the Federal Reserve’s triennial Survey of Consumer Finances to compare households’ projected replacement rates — retirement income as a percentage of preretirement income — with targets that would maintain their standard of living. Those households with a projected replacement rate that is more than 10% below the target are characterized as...

October 25, 2023
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20Oct

Preparing for an Aging Africa: Data-Driven Priorities for Economic Research and Policy

By Madeline E. Duhon, Edward Miguel, Amos Njuguna, Daniela Pinto Veizaga & Michael W. Walker The over-60 population in Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow rapidly in the coming decades, tripling between 2020 and 2050. Despite this explosive projected growth, few countries in the region have implemented policies designed to support older populations. Further, little research in economics has specifically examined aging in Sub-Saharan Africa, though many opportunities exist for economists to generate research evidence to inform the design of...

October 20, 2023
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