May 2022

Assessing Heterogeneity in the Health Effects of Social Pensions Among the Poor Elderly: Evidence from Peru

By Noelia Bernal Lobato, Javier Olivera & Marc Suhrcke This paper exploits the discontinuity around a welfare index of eligibility to assess the heterogeneous health impacts of Peru's social pension program Pension 65, which focuses on elderly poor individuals. The heterogeneity is analysed in terms of the treatment exposure (short vs long run), the accessibility to health care infrastructure (near vs distant facilities), and gender. We find improvements in anaemia, mortality risk markers, cognitive functioning, mental health, and self-reported health....

The LGBTQ+ Gap: Recent Estimates for Young Adults in the United States

The LGBTQ+ Gap: Recent Estimates for Young Adults in the United States

By Marc Folch This article provides recent estimates of earnings and mental health for sexual and gender minority young adults in the United States. Using data from a nationally representative sample of bachelor’s degree recipients, I find a significant earnings and mental health gap between self-identified LGBTQ+ and comparable heterosexual cisgender graduates. On average, sexual and gender minorities experience 22% lower earnings ten years after graduation. About half of this gap can be attributed to LGBTQ+ graduates being less likely...

April 2022

US. Mexican immigrants have to work longer due to inadequate Social Security benefits, study finds

Mexican immigrants are a critical part of the American workforce, but they are also financially vulnerable. As Emma Aguila explains in new research she co-authored in the Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Mexican immigrants face greater obstacles in securing social security benefits and therefore have to work later into life. Equally important, Aguila and her colleagues, Zeewan Lee and Rebeca Wong, found Mexicans who do receive those benefits are more likely to rely on them compared to non-Hispanic white populations. However, an...

December 2021

Pensions protected during COVID-19 pandemic but ageing challenges persist, says OECD

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a heavy toll among elderly people although retirees have seen their pension payments well protected across OECD countries. Future pension entitlements have also been well protected thanks to the exceptional policy response to the crisis, according to a new OECD report. Pensions at a Glance 2021 says however that the long-term financial pressure from ageing persists. Pension finances deteriorated during the pandemic due to lost contributions, and shortfalls have been mainly covered by state budgets....

US. Treasury Sets 2021 Retirement Plan Amendment Deadlines

The IRS has issued its required amendments list for 2021, setting deadlines for changes in qualification requirements for employee benefit plans and end-dates for remedial amendment periods. The remedial amendment period lets employers retroactively fix plan modifications that inadvertently altered their tax status. Generally, employers have until the end of 2023 to make those changes for 2021 amendments. The required amendments pertain to individually designed retirement plans and 403(b) group annuity plans but exclude government-sponsored health and retirement benefits. Read more @Bloomberg...

How Staying Physically Active May Protect the Aging Brain

Staying physically active as we age substantially drops our risk of developing dementia during our lifetimes, and it doesn’t require prolonged exercise. Walking or moving about, rather than sitting, may be all it takes to help bolster the brain, and a new study of octogenarians from Chicago may help to explain why. The study, which tracked how often older people moved or sat and then looked deep inside their brains after they passed away, found that certain vital immune cells...

November 2021

COP26 Special Report on Climate Change and Health

By World Health Organization The 10 recommendations in the COP26 Special Report on Climate Change and Health propose a set of priority actions from the global health community to governments and policy makers, calling on them to act with urgency on the current climate and health crises. The recommendations were developed in consultation with over 150 organizations and 400 experts and health professionals. They are intended to inform governments and other stakeholders ahead of the 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26)...

October 2021

Health and Aging Before and after Retirement

By Ana Abeliansky & Holger Strulik We investigate health and aging before and after retirement for specific occupational groups. We use five waves of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) and construct a frailty index for elderly men and women from 10 European countries. Occupational groups are classified according to low vs. high education, blue vs. white collar color, and high vs. low physical or psychosocial job burden. Controlling for individual fixed effects, we find that,...

Pension, health costs to dwarf COVID debt legacy in long term -OECD

The costs of repaying debt raised to help households and businesses through the COVID-19 crisis will be dwarfed by those from long-term trends like funding pensions and health services as societies age, the OECD said in a report on Tuesday. Read also  Canada. Uber drivers, gig workers pressure Ontario government for employee status Examining the economic outlook out to 2060, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said governments will increasingly have to contend with the costs associated with aging populations...

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Precarious Aging: The Importance of an Equity Response

By Marc A. Garcia, Adriana M. Reyes & Catherine Garcia Older Black, Indigenous, and Latinx adults are at a higher risk of negative COVID-19 outcomes relative to older non-Latinx White adults. Mounting evidence regarding the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color lays bare the effects of long-standing and deeply rooted structural racism in American society. Residential and occupational segregation and unequal access to health-promoting resources such as education, income, wealth, and quality healthcare have exposed and amplified pre-existing...