July 2020

World is Facing a Population Bust

In his last book, "Billions and Billions," published in 1997, Carl Sagan wrote: “There is a well-documented worldwide correlation between poverty and high birthrates … exponential population growth slows down or stops when grinding poverty disappears. This is called demographic transition.” More recently, John Ibbitson and Darrell Bricker wrote in their book, "Empty Planet": Read also Australia. Low income earners get further support The great defining event of the twenty-first century — one of the great defining events in human...

Ireland. Ageing population will have ‘substantial’ impact on government debt – IFAC

The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) has warned that Ireland will soon become one of the fastest ageing populations in the EU. In its first Long Term Sustainability Report, the council said the impact on government debt will be "substantial" and "long-lasting". The percentage of the population aged 65 and over, compared to the numbers aged 15-64, will more than double from 22% today to almost 47% in 2050. This means relatively fewer people working to sustain higher spending...

Japan’s Deadly Combination: Climate Change and an Aging Society

The forecast was dire: close to nine inches of rain in a single day. Officials in Kuma, a village on the banks of a fast-moving river in southwestern Japan, urged everyone to evacuate. Yet inside the Senjuen nursing home, the 70 residents were left in place. The decision proved disastrous. The rain that fell early Saturday was even worse than expected, a blinding downpour that soon inundated the village’s streets. Caretakers in the nursing home, which lacked an elevator,...

Choosing Retirement Investments Based On Age Alone Is Faulty

I was talking with a young couple the other week regarding their retirement investment selection in their 401(k) plan. They both had selected choices based upon their retirement age. They will hit that age in 2050. If you aren’t retiring for 30 years, that might seem like a good choice. But what does that year really mean when it comes to investing for retirement? This type of investment approach is typically referred to as a target-date strategy. I gave...

Greece. Open call to foreign pensioners

Greece is about to issue an open invitation to foreign pensioners to relocate their tax domicile to Greece, with a bill to that effect set to be put up for consultation today or on Monday, Finance Minister Christos Staikouras stated on Thursday. He also reiterated his view that the economy will not shrink any more than 8% this year. In an interview on Skai Radio Staikouras revealed the bill is ready for public consultation, offering tax incentives to pensioners...

June 2020

Norway’s Ageing Population Problem

Right now, the biggest problem faced by Norway is the necessary transition away from the oil and gas industry. The country's economy has been fuelled by the deposits under the Norwegian continental shelf for decades. With reservoirs running dry, the economy needs to diversify. But with investment in modern technologies such as electric battery and charging infrastructure, offshore wind, and autonomous shipping, Norway's government does at least have a plan. The same can't be said, yet, for the problem...

Wealth Distribution and Retirement Preparation Among Early Savers

By: Alice Henriques, Lindsay Jacobs, Elizabeth Llanes, Kevin B. Moore, Jeffrey P. Thompson. This paper develops a new combined wealth measure using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, by augmenting data on net worth with estimates of defined benefit (DB) pension wealth and expected Social Security wealth. We use this combined wealth concept to explore retirement preparation among groups of households in their pre-retirement years (40-49 and 50-59) and also to explore the concentration of wealth. We find...

People in Germany are continuing to retire later and later

The average age at which people in Germany enter retirement has risen again over the past year, from 64,1 years in 2018 to 64,3 years in 2019. The age for women was particularly affected, mainly due to the Mother’s Pension II. Pension age for women rises sharply According to the German Pension Insurance Federation (Deutsche Rentenversicherung), the average age at which people start to draw their pensions has risen over the course of the last year. In 2018, the...

Japan Mulls Resubmitting Legislation to Raise Retirement Age of Civil Servants

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government will consider resubmitting legislation to raise the retirement age for civil servants, its top spokesman said on Wednesday, after public backlash prompted the withdrawal of draft legislation. During the parliamentary session that ended on Wednesday, the government abandoned its push to enact legislation that would raise prosecutors' retirement age to 65 from 63, and let the cabinet defer retirement of senior prosecutors for a further three years. Critics and others argued it would...

The future of aging in the US

What does the future of aging in America look like? For answers, every year we ask some of our newest Influencers in Aging to offer their views at the American Society on Aging’s Aging in America conference. The pandemic turned this year’s in-person panel into a June 11 webinar, and the Influencers’ forecasts — as well as their laments — couldn’t have been timelier. “I want to acknowledge that we as a country have had a few rough months...