Elke Loichinger

The advantages of demographic change after the wave: fewer and older, but healthier, greener, and more productive?

Population aging is an inevitable global demographic process. Most of the literature on the consequences of demographic change focuses on the economic and societal challenges that we will face as people live longer and have fewer children. In this paper, we (a) briefly describe key trends and projections of the magnitude and speed of population aging; (b) discuss the economic, social, and environmental consequences of population aging; and (c) investigate some of the opportunities that aging societies create. We use Germany as a case study. However, the general insights that we obtain can be generalized to other developed countries. We argue that there may be positive unintended side effects of population aging that can be leveraged to address pressing environmental problems and issues of gender inequality and intergenerational ties.

Trends in Working Life Expectancy in Europe.

Objective: The aim of the article is to analyze past and present developments of working life expectancy (WLE) at age 50 by age, sex, and education in Europe. WLE is also compared with life expectancy (LE) and healthy life expectancy (HLE). Method: WLE is calculated with the Sullivan method. Labor force participation is based on the European Union (EU) Labor Force Survey. Results: WLE at age 50 has been increasing since the mid- to late 1990s in most European countries. Increases were more pronounced among women than men. Differences in WLE by education are substantial. The comparison of WLE, LE, and HLE for the year 2009 reveals that the correlation between WLE and LE is smaller than between WLE and HLE. Discussion: The analysis of trends in WLE at age 50, particularly when set in relation to remaining LE, provides useful insights about the development of the distribution of economically active and inactive years in Europe’s aging societies.

Quantifying Economic Dependency

In this paper we compare several types of economic dependency ratios for a selection of European countries. These dependency ratios take into account not only the demographic structure of the population, but also the differences in age-specific economic behaviour such as labour market activity, income and consumption as well as age-specific public transfers. In selected simulations where we combine patterns of age-specific economic behaviour and transfers with population projections, we show that in all countries population ageing would lead to a pronounced increase in dependency ratios if present age-specific patterns were not to change. Our analysis of cross-country differences in economic dependency demonstrates that these differences are driven by both differences in age-specific economic behaviour and in the age composition of the populations. The choice of which dependency ratio to use in a specific policy context is determined by the nature of the question to be answered. The comparison of our various dependency ratios across countries gives insights into which strategies might be effective in mitigating the expected increase in economic dependency due to demographic change.