Live Longer, Work Longer? Evidence from Sweden’s Ageing Population
(2016) In Lund Studies in Economic History 75.- Abstract
- Sweden’s elderly population is growing, propelled by a continuous decline in old-age mortality, while coupled with a persistent replacement level fertility. This changing age structure increases the per worker cost of providing a given age-vector of per capita benefits, encompassing costs for pensions, health care, and all other type of old-age welfare services, which presents a looming challenge for the welfare state to sustain its social transfer system. Options for tackling this daunting challenge, such as increasing fertility and immigration levels, cutting benefits and growing public debts, present numerous obstacles, thus discussion of policy options has shifted the focus towards extending working life. This book contributes to this... (More)
- Sweden’s elderly population is growing, propelled by a continuous decline in old-age mortality, while coupled with a persistent replacement level fertility. This changing age structure increases the per worker cost of providing a given age-vector of per capita benefits, encompassing costs for pensions, health care, and all other type of old-age welfare services, which presents a looming challenge for the welfare state to sustain its social transfer system. Options for tackling this daunting challenge, such as increasing fertility and immigration levels, cutting benefits and growing public debts, present numerous obstacles, thus discussion of policy options has shifted the focus towards extending working life. This book contributes to this ongoing policy discussion by exploring the recent trends in labor supply, and investigating the underlying mechanisms driving these trends. The results of this work illustrate a recent trend of prolonging working life in Sweden, whereby average labor income has increased at older ages, and younger cohorts have increasingly postponed their retirement. While these changes are uniform across individuals of different sexes, occupations, and educational levels, the underlying mechanisms appear different. These micro mechanisms may have myriad implications concerning aggregate economic support for the ageing Swedish population.
In this regard, the findings in this book are relevant inputs for assessing the welfare consequences of population ageing and deriving evidence-based policy options. (Less) - Abstract (Swedish)
- Popular Abstract in English
Sweden’s elderly population is growing, propelled by a continuous decline in old-age
mortality, while coupled with a persistent replacement level fertility. This
changing age structure increases the per worker cost of providing a given age-vector
of per capita benefits, encompassing costs for pensions, health care, and all
other type of old-age welfare services, which presents a looming challenge for the
welfare state to sustain its social transfer system. Options for tackling this daunting
challenge, such as increasing fertility and immigration levels, cutting benefits and
growing public debts, present numerous obstacles, thus... (More) - Popular Abstract in English
Sweden’s elderly population is growing, propelled by a continuous decline in old-age
mortality, while coupled with a persistent replacement level fertility. This
changing age structure increases the per worker cost of providing a given age-vector
of per capita benefits, encompassing costs for pensions, health care, and all
other type of old-age welfare services, which presents a looming challenge for the
welfare state to sustain its social transfer system. Options for tackling this daunting
challenge, such as increasing fertility and immigration levels, cutting benefits and
growing public debts, present numerous obstacles, thus discussion of policy options
has shifted the focus towards extending working life. This book contributes
to this ongoing policy discussion by exploring the recent trends in labor supply,
and investigating the underlying mechanisms driving these trends. The results of
this work illustrate a recent trend of prolonging working life in Sweden, whereby
average labor income has increased at older ages, and younger cohorts have increasingly
postponed their retirement. While these changes are uniform across
individuals of different sexes, occupations, and educational levels, the underlying
mechanisms appear different. These micro mechanisms may have myriad implications
concerning aggregate economic support for the ageing Swedish population.
In this regard, the findings in this book are relevant inputs for assessing the welfare
consequences of population ageing and deriving evidence-based policy options. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/8594774
- author
- Qi, Haodong LU
- supervisor
-
- Tommy Bengtsson LU
- Kirk Scott LU
- Åsa Hansson LU
- opponent
-
- Professor Pedersen, Peder, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University
- organization
- publishing date
- 2016
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Employment, Retirement Behavior, Working Life, Labor Supply, Pension Reform, Financial Incentives, Population Ageing
- in
- Lund Studies in Economic History
- volume
- 75
- pages
- 218 pages
- publisher
- Department of Economic History, Lund University
- defense location
- EC3:207, School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Sweden
- defense date
- 2016-03-04 14:00:00
- ISSN
- 1400-4860
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 52371e35-29da-417f-a573-8f4e2ea4bcf0 (old id 8594774)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 13:02:19
- date last changed
- 2023-05-29 15:10:42
@phdthesis{52371e35-29da-417f-a573-8f4e2ea4bcf0,
abstract = {{Sweden’s elderly population is growing, propelled by a continuous decline in old-age mortality, while coupled with a persistent replacement level fertility. This changing age structure increases the per worker cost of providing a given age-vector of per capita benefits, encompassing costs for pensions, health care, and all other type of old-age welfare services, which presents a looming challenge for the welfare state to sustain its social transfer system. Options for tackling this daunting challenge, such as increasing fertility and immigration levels, cutting benefits and growing public debts, present numerous obstacles, thus discussion of policy options has shifted the focus towards extending working life. This book contributes to this ongoing policy discussion by exploring the recent trends in labor supply, and investigating the underlying mechanisms driving these trends. The results of this work illustrate a recent trend of prolonging working life in Sweden, whereby average labor income has increased at older ages, and younger cohorts have increasingly postponed their retirement. While these changes are uniform across individuals of different sexes, occupations, and educational levels, the underlying mechanisms appear different. These micro mechanisms may have myriad implications concerning aggregate economic support for the ageing Swedish population.<br/>In this regard, the findings in this book are relevant inputs for assessing the welfare consequences of population ageing and deriving evidence-based policy options.}},
author = {{Qi, Haodong}},
issn = {{1400-4860}},
keywords = {{Employment; Retirement Behavior; Working Life; Labor Supply; Pension Reform; Financial Incentives; Population Ageing}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Department of Economic History, Lund University}},
school = {{Lund University}},
series = {{Lund Studies in Economic History}},
title = {{Live Longer, Work Longer? Evidence from Sweden’s Ageing Population}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/3122852/8594877.pdf}},
volume = {{75}},
year = {{2016}},
}