Elisenda Rentería

How intergenerational transfers finance the lifecycle deficit in Spain

In this chapter we present the estimates of the national transfers occurring among age groups in Spain in year 2000 using the NTA methodology proposed by Mason, Lee and others (2006). The life cycle deficit is positive –a surplus– for ages 27 to 57, while the rest of individuals become dependent, being the age reallocations of both age groups quite different. On the one hand, during childhood and youth, individual consumption is mainly financed by private transfers (69%) while public transfers only amount to a 32% being mainly in-kind transfers, through education and health systems. On the other hand, older people finance their lifecycle deficit mainly through asset-based reallocations (66%), followed by public transfers (41%, composed both of substantial cash transfers –retirement and survivor pensions– and in-kind health benefits). Interestingly, we find that the elderly are net payers of private transfers, implying that they are transferring money or housing services to the young members of their family. This surprising result could be explained by the high proportion of co resident elderly. This together with the fact that all individuals aged more than 16 pay and receive private transfers at the same time indicates that private support and hence intergenerational sharing tends to be mutual in Spain, implying that Spain is half-way between the northern European countries and the Latin-American countries. (1) Departamento de Teoria Economica, Universidad de Barcelona and Instituto de Estudios Fiscales (Spain) (2) Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte (Brazil) (3) Center on Economics and Demography of Aging, University of California, Berkeley (USA) (4) Departamento de Economia Aplicada, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain) This work received institutional support from the Spanish Science and Technology System (project nos. BEC2003-1831 and ECO2008-04997/ECON) and from the Catalan Government Science network (Project nos. SGR-2005-177 and SGR2005 -460 as well as XREPPXarxa de referencia en Economia i Politica Publiques).

The Effect of Changes in Educational Composition on Adult Female Mortality in Brazil

The last century in Brazil was witness to profound changes. Female life expectancy at birth increased from 34.6 years in 1910 to 77.26 years in 2010. At the same time, the educational composition of the population has changed dramatically. In the 1940s, only 25% of the children aged 5–14 years old were enrolled in school. Currently, nearly all children attend school. We examine the extent to which changes in the age-specific distribution of education have contributed to the decline in adult mortality among women in Brazil. Our analysis follows other applications in the literature to measure the mortality reduction that would occur if exposure to specific risk factors was changed at the counterfactual level. The effects are not trivial: Between 1960 and 2010, about 38% of the increase in life expectancy at age 30 can be attributed to changes in the educational composition of women. An additional 22% increase is expected until 2040.